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Resistance And Nonviolence Are Not In Themselves Good. There Is Another Element That Must Be Present In Our Struggle That Then Makes Our Resistance And Nonviolence Truly Meaningful. That Element Is Reconciliation. Our Ultimate End Must Be The Creation Of The Beloved Community.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Resistance And Nonviolence Are

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Resistance And Nonviolence Are Not In Themselves Good. There Is Another Element That Must Be Present In Our Struggle That Then Makes Our Resistance And Nonviolence Truly Meaningful. That Element Is Reconciliation. Our Ultimate End Must Be The Creation Of The Beloved Community.

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Beloved Community

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We Have A Great Dream. It Started Way Back In 1776, And God Grant That America Will Be True To Her Dream.

As The Weeks And Months Unfolded, We Realized That We Were The Victims Of A Broken Promise.

So Long As I Do Not Firmly And Irrevocably Possess The Right To Vote I Do Not Possess Myself. I Cannot Make Up My Mind - It Is Made Up For Me. I Cannot Live As A Democratic Citizen, Observing The Laws I Have Helped To Enact - I Can Only Submit To The Edict Of Others.

Good And Just Society Is Neither The Thesis Of Capitalism Nor The Antithesis Of Communism, But A Socially Conscious Democracy Which Reconciles The Truths Of Individualism And Collectivism.

Curtailment Of Free Speech Is Rationalized On Grounds That A More Compelling American Tradition Forbids Criticism Of The Government When The Nation Is At War... Nothing Can Be More Destructive Of Our Fundamental Democratic Traditions Than The Vicious Effort To Silence Dissenters.

Freedom Is One Thing. You Have It All Or You Are Not Free.

Power Properly Understood Is Nothing But The Ability To Achieve Purpose. It Is The Strength Required To Bring About Social, Political And Economic Change.

In Our Society, It Is Psychological Murder To Deprive A Man Of A Job...you Are In Substance Saying To That Man "you Have No Right To Exist.

The Law Of "an Eye For An Eye" Will Eventually Leave Everyone Blind.

America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

I Have A Dream Speech

The Words 'bad Timing' Came To Be Ghosts Haunting Our Every Move In Birmingham. Yet People Who Used This Argument Were Ignorant Of The Background Of Our Planning...they Did Not Realize That It Was Ridiculous To Speak Of Timing When The Clock Of History Showed That The Negro Had Already Suffered One Hundred Years Of Delay.

The Richer We Have Become Materially, The Poorer We Become Morally And Spiritually. We Have Learned To Fly In The Air Like Birds And Swim In The Sea Like Fish, But We Have Not Learned The Simple Art Of Living Together As Brothers.

If You've Got Nothing Worth Dying For, You've Got Nothing Worth Living For.

Of Course, There Is Nothing New About This Kind Of Civil Disobedience. It Was Seen Sublimely In The Refusal Of Shadrach, Meshach And Abednego To Obey The Laws Of Nebuchadnezzar Because A Higher Moral Law Was Involved. It Was Practiced Superbly By The Early Christians Who Were Willing To Face Hungry Lions And The Excruciating Pain Of Chopping Blocks, Before Submitting To Certain Unjust Laws Of The Roman Empire.

We Know Through Painful Experience That Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed. Frankly I Have Never Yet Engaged In A Direct Action Movement That Was 'well Timed,' According To The Timetable Of Those Who Have Not Suffered Unduly From The Disease Of Segregation. For Years Now I Have Heard The Word 'wait!' It Rings In The Ear Of Every Negro With A Piercing Familiarity. This 'wait' Has Almost Always Meant 'never.' We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That 'justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.'

Painful Experiences

I Choose To Give My Life For Those Who Have Been Left Out Of The Sunlight Of Opportunity

Love Is Creative, Understanding Goodwill For All Men. It Is The Refusal To Defeat Any Individual.

Segregation, As Even The Segregationists Know In Their Hearts, Is Morally Wrong And Sinful. If It Weren't, The White South Would Not Be Haunted As It Is By A Deep Sense Of Guilt For What It Has Done To The Negro - Guilt For Patronizing Him, Degrading Him, Brutalizing Him, Depersonalizing Him, Thingifying Him; Guilt For Lying To Itself. This Is The Source Of The Schizophrenia That The South Will Suffer Until It Goes Through Its Crisis Of Conscience.

I Still Have A Dream Today That One Day War Will Come To An End, That Men Will Beat Their Swords Into Plowshares And Their Spears Into Pruning Hooks, That Nations Will No Longer Rise Up Against Nations, Neither Will They Study War Any More.

It Is Better To Be The Recipient Of Violence Than The Inflicter Of It, Since The Latter Only Multiplies The Existence Of Violence And Bitterness In The Universe, While The Former May Develop A Sense Of Shame In The Opponent, And Thereby Bring About A Transformation And Change Of Heart.

I Think If We, Say, If All Of The Major Leaders In This Struggle [for Human's Rights] Were At, At War With Each Other, Then I Think It Would Be Very Difficult To Make This Social Revolution The Kind Of Powerful Revolution That It's Proved To Be.

The Negro Is The Child Of Two Cultures - Africa And America. The Problem Is That In The Search For Wholeness All Too Many Negroes Seek To Embrace Only One Side Of Their Natures.

As My Sufferings Mounted I Soon Realized That There Were Two Ways In Which I Could Respond To My Situation -- Either To React With Bitterness Or Seek To Transform The Suffering Into A Creative Force. I Decided To Follow The Latter Course.

Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate; Only Love Can Do That.

It Is A Strangely Irrational Notion That There Is Something In The Very Flow Of Time That Will Inevitably Cure All Ills. Actually Time Is Neutral. It Can Be Used Either Destructively Or Constructively. I Am Coming To Feel That The People Of Ill Will Have Used Time Much More Effectively Than The People Of Good Will. We Will Have To Repent In This Generation Not Merely For The Vitriolic Words And Actions Of The Bad People, But For The Appalling Silence Of The Good People.

My Obligation Is To Do The Right Thing. The Rest Is In God's Hands.

The Decision We Must Make Now Is Whether We Will Give Our Allegiance To Outmoded And Unjust Customs Or To The Ethical Demands Of The Universe. As Christians We Owe Our Allegiance To God And His Will, Rather Than To Man And His Folkways

I Am Cognizant Of The Interrelatedness Of All Communities And States. I Cannot Sit Idly By In Atlanta And Not Be Concerned About What Happens In Birmingham. Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere. We Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Directly, Affects All Indirectly. Never Again Can We Afford To Live With The Narrow, Provincial "outside Agitator" Idea.

I Question And Soul-search Constantly Into Myself To Be As Certain As I Can That I Am Fulfilling The True Meaning Of My Work, That I Am Maintaining My Sense Of Purpose, That I Am Holding Fast To My Ideals, That I Am Guiding My People In The Right Direction.

Time Has Been Used Destructively By People Of Ill Will Much More Than It Has Been Used Constructively By Those Of Good Will.

The Soft-minded Man Always Fears Change. He Feels Security In The Status Quo, And He Has An Almost Morbid Fear Of The New. For Him, The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

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History Is The Long And Tragic Story Of The Fact That Privileged Groups Seldom Give Up Their Privileges Voluntarily.

Love Is Creative, Understanding Goodwill For All Men. It Is The Refusal To Defeat Any Individual. When You Rise To The Level Of Love, Of Its Great Beauty And Power, You Seek Only To Defeat Evil Systems. Individuals Who Happen To Be Caught Up In That System, You Love, But You Seek To Defeat The System.

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It Will Be One Of The Tragedies Of Christian History If Future Historians Record That At The Height Of The Twentieth Century The Church Was One Of The Greatest Bulwarks Of White Supremacy.

Nonviolence Is Not Sterile Passivity, But A Powerful Moral Force Which Makes For Social Transformation.

Social Transformation

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There Is A Power In Love That Our World Has Not Discovered Yet. Jesus Discovered It Centuries Ago. Mahatma Gandhi Of India Discovered It A Few Years Ago, But Most Men And Most Women Never Discover It. For They Believe In Hitting For Hitting; They Believe In An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth; They Believe In Hating For Hating; But Jesus Comes To Us And Says, 'this Isn't The Way.'

Evil Must Be Attacked By. . . The Day To Day Assault Of The Battering Rams Of Justice.

Hate Destroys The Hater.

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Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

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If I Lived In A Communist Country Today Where Certain Principles Dear To The Christian Faith Are Suppressed, I Believe I Would Openly Advocate Disobeying These Anti-religious Laws.

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There Is A More Excellent Way, Of Love And Nonviolent Protest.

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There Is Something Wrong With Our World, Something Fundamentally And Basically Wrong.

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One Day We Shall Win Freedom, But Not Only For Ourselves. We Shall So Appeal To Your Heart And Conscience That We Shall Win You In The Process, And Our Victory Will Be A Double Victory.

We Are Challenged To Develop A World Perspective. No Individual Can Live Alone, No Nation Can Live Alone, And Anyone Who Feels That He Can Live Alone Is Sleeping Through A Revolution. The World In Which We Live Is Geographically One.

In Order To Be True To One's Conscience And True To God, A Righteous Man Has No Alternative But To Refuse To Cooperate With An Evil System.

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Let Us Not Wallow In The Valley Of Despair.

I Have A Dream Speech

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And I've Seen The Promised Land. I May Not Get There With You. But I Want You To Know Tonight, That We, As A People Will Get To The Promised Land

True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar; It Comes To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring.

For All Of Us Today, The Battle Is In Our Hands. The Road Ahead Is Not Altogether A Smooth One. There Are No Broad Highways To Lead Us Easily And Inevitably To Quick Solutions. We Must Keep Going.

I Think One Can Live In American Society With A Certain Cultural Heritage, Whether It's An African Heritage Or Other, European,what Have You, And Still Absorb A Great Deal Of This Culture. There Is Always Cultural Assimilation.

Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation.

The Principle Of Nonviolent Resistance Seeks To Reconcile The Truths Of Two Opposites-acquiescence And Violence -while Avoiding The Extremes And Immoralities Of Both.

No One Is Free Until We Are All Free.

One Day We Will Learn That The Heart Can Never Be Totally Right When The Head Is Totally Wrong

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In The Event Of A Violent Revolution, We Would Be Sorely Outnumbered. And When It Was All Over, The Negro Would Face The Same Unchanged Conditions, The Same Squalor And Deprivation-the Only Difference Being That His Bitterness Would Be Even More Intense, His Disenchantment Even More Abject. Thus, In Purely Practical As Well As Moral Terms, The American Negro Has No Rational Alternative To Nonviolence.

Everyone Has An Opportunity To Be Great Because Everyone Has An Opportunity To Serve.

No Work Is Insignificant. All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity

Dignity Of Work

We Cannot Be Truly Christian People So Long As We Flaunt The Central Teachings Of Jesus: Brotherly Love And The Golden Rule.

If A City Has A 30% Negro Population, Then It Is Logical To Assume That Negroes Should Have At Least 30% Of The Jobs In Any Particular Company, And Jobs In All Categories Rather Than Only In Menial Areas.

The True Neighbor Will Risk His Position, His Prestige, And Even His Life For The Welfare Of Others.

The Church Must Be Reminded That It Is Not The Master Or The Servant Of The State, But Rather The Conscience Of The State. It Must Be The Guide And The Critic Of The State, And Never Its Tool. If The Church Does Not Recapture Its Prophetic Zeal, It Will Become An Irrelevant Social Club Without Moral Or Spiritual Authority.

Where Evil Men Would Seek To Perpetuate An Unjust Status Quo, Good Men Must Seek To Bring Into Being A Real Order Of Justice.

Forgiveness Is Not An Occasional Act. It Is A Permanent Attitude. That Which I Was Not But Could Have Been. That Which I Would Have Done But Did Not Do. Can I Find The Fortitude To Remember In Truth,to Understand, To Submit, To Forgive And To Be Free To Move On In Time?

Violence Is Not The Way.

God Made The World From Nothing, And If We Can Be Nothing, Then God Can Make Something Of Us.

A Right Delayed Is A Right Denied.

We Must Accept Finite Disappointment, But Never Lose Infinite Hope.

And When This Happens, When We Allow Freedom Ring, When We Let It Ring From Every Village And Every Hamlet, From Every State And Every City, We Will Be Able To Speed Up That Day When All Of God's Children, Black Men And White Men, Jews And Gentiles, Protestants And Catholics, Will Be Able To Join Hands And Sing In The Words Of The Old Negro Spiritual: Free At Last! Free At Last! Thank God Almighty, We Are Free At Last!

"i Criticize America Because I Love Her. I Want Her To Stand As A Moral Example To The World."

I Want To Be The White Man's Brother, Not His Brother-in-law.

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy... In Fact, Violence Merely Increases Hate. So It Goes. Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

We Must Forever Conduct Our Struggle On The High Plane Of Dignity And Discipline. We Must Not Allow Our Creative Protest To Degenerate Into Physical Violence.

Police Violence

There Comes A Time When A Moral Man Can't Obey A Law Which His Conscience Tells Him Is Unjust.

Libertarian Party

If A Person Sweeps Streets For A Living, He Should Sweep Them As Michelangelo Painted, As Beethoven Composed, As Shakespear Wrote.

Our Lives Are Not Fully Lived If We're Not Willing To Die For Those We Love, For What We Believe.

Knowledge Is A Process Of Piling Up Facts; Wisdom Lies In Their Simplification.

When Our Days Become Dreary With Low Hovering Clouds Of Despair, And When Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, Let Us Remember That There Is A Creative Force In This Universe, Working To Pull Down The Gigantic Mountains Of Evil, A Power That Is Able To Make A Way Out Of No Way And Transform Dark Yesterdays Into Bright Tomorrows. Let Us Realize The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

If I Sought To Answer All Of The Criticisms That Cross My Desk, My Secretaries Would Be Engaged In Little Else In The Course Of The Day, And I Would Have No Time For Constructive Work.

Those Of Us Who Love Peace Must Organize As Effectively As The War Hawks. As They Spread The Propaganda Of War, We Must Spread The Propaganda Of Peace.

Even When The Polls Are Open To All, Negroes Have Shown Themselves Too Slow To Exercise Their Voting Privileges. There Must Be A Concerted Effort On The Part Of Negro Leaders To Arouse Their People From Their Apathetic Indifference.... In The Past, Apathy Was A Moral Failure. Today, It Is A Form Of Moral And Political Suicide.

Shallow Understanding From People Of Good Will Is More Frustrating Than Absolute Misunderstanding From People Of Ill Will.

Non-violent Direct Action Seeks To Create Such A Crisis And Establish Such Creative Tension That A Community That Has Constantly Refused To Negotiate Is Forced To Confront The Issue. It Seeks So To Dramatize The Issue That It Can No Longer Be Ignored... I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension. I Have Earnestly Worked And Preached Against Violent Tension, And There Is A Type Of Constructive Tension That Is Necessary For Growth.

You Cannot Solve The Problem By Turning To Communism, For Communism Is Based On An Ethical Relativism And A Metaphysical Materialism That No Christian Can Accept.

The World In Which We Live Is Geographically One. The Challenge That We Face Today Is To Make It One In Terms Of Brotherhood.

The Negro Needs The White Man To Free Him From His Fears. The White Man Needs The Negro To Free Him From His Guilt.

But I Say To You, My Friends, There Are Certain Things In Our Nation And In The World Which I Am Proud To Be Maladjusted And Which I Hope All Men Of Good-will Will Be Maladjusted Until The Good Societies Realize.

Violence Brings Only Temporary Victories; Violence, By Creating Many More Social Problems Than It Solves, Never Brings Permanent Peace.

What Good Does It Do To Sit At The Counter When You Cannot Afford A Hamburger?

Economic Inequality

A Nation Or Civilization That Continues To Produce Soft-minded Men Purchases Its Own Spiritual Death On The Installment Plan.

Today, Our Very Survival Depends On Our Ability To Stay Awake, To Adjust To New Ideas, To Remain Vigilant And To Face The Challenge Of Change.

Don't Let Anybody Make You Think That God Chose America As His Divine, Messianic Force To Be A Sort Of Policeman Of The Whole World.

Normal Fear Protects Us; Abnormal Fear Paralyses Us. Normal Fear Motivates Us To Improve Our Individual And Collective Welfare; Abnormal Fear Constantly Poisons And Distorts Our Inner Lives. Our Problem Is Not To Be Rid Of Fear But, Rather To Harness And Master It.

One Day The Absurdity Of The Almost Universal Human Belief In The Slavery Of Other Animals Will Be Palpable. We Shall Then Have Discovered Our Souls And Become Worthier Of Sharing This Planet With Them.

But Though I Was Initially Disappointed At Being Categorized As An Extremist, As I Continued To Think About The Matter I Gradually Gained A Measure Of Satisfaction From The Label. Was Not Jesus An Extremist For Love: “love Your Enemies, Bless Them That Curse You, Do Good To Them That Hate You, And Pray For Them Which Despitefully Use You, And Persecute You.”

If It Falls Your Lot To Be A Street Sweeper, Sweep Streets As Raphael Painted Pictures, Sweep Streets As Michelangelo Carved Marble, Sweep Streets As Beethoven Composed Music, Or Shakespeare Wrote Poetry.

Education Must Enable One To Sift And Weigh Evidence, To Discern The True From The False, The Real From The Unreal, And The Facts From The Fiction.

And One Day We Must Ask The Question, "why Are There Forty Million Poor People In America?" And When You Begin To Ask That Question, You Are Raising Questions About The Economic System, About A Broader Distribution Of Wealth. When You Ask That Question, You Begin To Question The Capitalistic Economy.

I Would Be Misleading You If I Made You Feel That We Could Win A Violent Campaign. It's Impractical Even To Think About It. The Minute We Start, We Will End Up Getting Many More People Killed Unnecessarily. Now, I'm Ready To Die Myself. Many Other Committed People Are Ready To Die. If You Believe In Something Firmly, If You Believe In It Truly, If You Believe It In Your Heart, You Are Willing To Die For It, But I'm Not Going To Advocate A Method That Brings About Unnecessary Death.

Personalism's Insistence That Only Personality-finite And Infinite-is Ultimately Real Strengthened Me In Two Convictions: It Gave Me Metaphysical And Philosophical Grounding For The Idea Of A Personal God, And It Gave Me A Metaphysical Basis For The Dignity And Worth Of All Human Personality.

The Greatness Of Man Cannot Be Seen In The Hours Of Comfort And Convenience, But Rather In Moments Of Conflict/adversity

This Faith Transforms The Whirlwind Of Despair Into A Warm And Reviving Breeze Of Hope. The Words Of A Motto Which A Generation Ago Were Commonly Found On The Wall In The Homes Of Devout Persons Need To Be Etched On Our Hearts: Fear Knocked At The Door. Faith Answered. There Was No One There.

In Every Age And Every Generation, Men Have Envisioned A Promised Land. Some May Have Envisioned It With The Wrong Ideology, With The Wrong Philosophical Presupposition. But Men In Every Generation Thought In Terms Of Some Promised Land.

There Is Some Good In The Worst Of Us, And Some Evil In The Best Of Us.

My Study Of Gandhi Convinced Me That True Pacifism Is Not Nonresistance To Evil, But Nonviolent Resistance To Evil. Between The Two Positions, There Is A World Of Difference. Gandhi Resisted Evil With As Much Vigor And Power As The Violent Resister, But True Pacifism Is Not Unrealistic Submission To Evil Power. It Is Rather A Courageous Confrontation Of Evil By The Power Of Love. . . .

Another Reason Why We Must Love Our Enemies Is That Hate Scars The Soul And Distorts The Personality.

If The Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. Because The Goal Of America Is Freedom, Abused And Scorned Tho' We May Be, Our Destiny Is Tied Up With America's Destiny.

The Supreme Task Is To Organize And Unite People So That Their Anger Becomes A Transforming Force.

Let Us Say Boldly, That If The Total Slum Violations Of Law By The White Man Over The Years Were Calculated And Compared With The Lawbreaking Of A Few Days Of Riots, The Hardened Criminal Would Be The White Man.

We Are Out To Defeat Injustice And Not White Persons Who May Be Unjust.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. Even When Pressed By The Demands Of Inner Truth, Men Do Not Easily Assume The Task Of Opposing Their Government's Policy, Especially In Time Of War. Nor Does The Human Spirit Move Without Great Difficulty Against All The Apathy Of Conformist Thought, Within One's Own Bosom And In The Surrounding World.

We Are Called Upon To Help The Discouraged Beggars In Life's Marketplace. But One Day We Must Come To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring.

A Strong Man Must Be Militant As Well As Moderate. He Must Be A Realist As Well As An Idealist.

The Most Dangerous Criminal May Be The Man Gifted With Reason, But With No Morals.

There Is Nothing New About Poverty. What Is New, However, Is That We Have The Resources To Get Rid Of It.

Every Person Must Stand Up And Be Accountable, But Be Responsible For Their Actions.

Being Responsible

Nothing Degrades A Man Do More Than The Allowed Stoop So Low As To Hate Someone

By Nonviolent Resistance, The Negro Can Also Enlist All Men Of Good Will In His Struggle For Equality.

I Have A Dream That One Day Every Valley Shall Be Exalted, Every Hill And Mountain Shall Be Made Low, The Rough Places Will Be Made Straight And The Glory Of The Lord Shall Be Revealed And All Flesh Shall See It Together.

We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

Breaking Silence

Our Children Need Our Presence, Not Our Presents.

Why Should There Be Hunger And Deprivation In Any Land, In Any City, At Any Table, When Man Has The Resources And The Scientific Know-how To Provide All Mankind With The Basic Necessities Of Life? There Is No Deficit In Human Resources. The Deficit Is In Human Will.

I Must Face The Fact, As All Others In Positions Of Leadership Must Do, That America Today Is An Extremely Sick Nation, And That Something Could Well Happen To Me At Any Time. I Feel, Though, That My Cause Is So Right, So Moral, That If I Should Lose My Life, In Some Way It Would Aid The Cause.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing.

We Can Either Walk The Highroad Of Brotherhood Or The Low Road Of Man's Inhumanity To Man.

Inhumanity To Man

Even Though I Have Never Had An Abrupt Conversion Experience, Religion Has Been Real To Me And Closely Knitted To Life. In Fact The Two Cannot Be Separated; Religion For Me Is Life.

Every Man [human Being] Is An Heir To A Legacy Of Dignity And Worth

Use Me, God. Show Me How To Take Who I Am, Who I Want To Be, And What I Can Do, And Use It For A Purpose Greater Than Myself.

Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word In Reality.

Each One Of Us Has The Power To Make Others Feel Better Or Worse. Making Others Feel Better Is Much More Fun Than Making Others Feel Worse. Making Others Feel Better Generally Makes Us Feel Better

My Uncertainty Disappeared. Segregation Is Evil, And I Cannot, As A Minister, Condone Evil.

I Knew That I Could Never Again Raise My Voice Against The Violence Of The Oppressed In The Ghettos Without Having First Spoken Clearly To The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World Today - My Own Government.... There Is Something Strangely Inconsistent About A Nation And A Press That Would Praise You When You Say, 'be Nonviolent Toward Jim Clark,' But Will Curse And Damn You When You Say, 'be Nonviolent Toward Little Brown Vietnamese Children!' There Is Something Wrong With That Press.

Unarmed Love Is The Most Powerful Force In All The World.

I Hate It When People Quote Me On The Internet, Claiming I Said Things That I Never Actually Said.

I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word In Reality. This Is Why Right, Temporarily Defeated, Is Stronger Than Evil Triumphant.

The Spirit Of Lincoln Still Lives; That Spirit Born Of The Teachings Of The Nazarene, Who Promised Mercy To The Merciful, Who Lifted The Lowly, Strengthened The Weak, Ate With Publicans, And Made The Captives Free. In The Light Of This Divine Example, The Doctrines Of Demagogues Shiver In Their Chaff.

When We Look At Modern Man, We Have To Face The Fact...that Modern Man Suffers From A Kind Of Poverty Of The Spirit, Which Stands In Glaring Contrast To His Scientific And Technological Abundance; We've Learned To Fly The Air Like Birds, We've Learned To Swim The Seas Like Fish, And Yet We Haven't Learned To Walk The Earth As Brothers And Sisters.

Every Word And Deed Must Contribute To An Understanding With The Enemy And Release Those Vast Reservoirs Of Goodwill Which Have Been Blocked By Impenetrable Walls Of Hate.

I Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems. And I'm Going To Talk About It Everywhere I Go. I Know It Isn't Popular To Talk About It In Some Circles Today. I'm Not Talking About Emotional Bosh When I Talk About Love, I'm Talking About A Strong, Demanding Love.

The Great Military Leaders Of The Past Have Gone, Their Empires Have Crumbled And Burned To Ashes. But The Empire Of Jesus, Built Solidly And Majestically On The Foundation Of Love, Is Still Growing.

There Is No Deficit In Human Resources; The Deficit Is In Human Will.

Within The Best Of Us, There Is Some Evil, And Within The Worst Of Us, There Is Some Good. When We Come To See This, We Take A Different Attitude Toward Individuals.

We Can No Longer Afford To Worship The God Of Hate Or Bow Before The Altar Of Retaliation. The Oceans Of History Are Made Turbulent By The Ever-rising Tides Of Hate. History Is Cluttered With The Wreckage Of Nations And Individuals That Pursued This Self-defeating Path Of Hate. Love Is The Key To The Solution Of The Problems Of The World.

The Function Of Education Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. Intelligence Plus Character - That Is The Goal Of True Education.

It Is Quite Easy For Me To Think Of A God Of Love Mainly Because I Grew Up In A Family Where Love Was Central And Where Lovely Relationships Were Ever Present.

In That Dramatic Scene On Calvary's Hill Three Men Were Crucified.... All Three Were Crucified For The Same Crime-the Crime Of Extremism. Two Were Extremists For Immorality, And Thus Fell Below Their Environment. The Other, Jesus Christ, Was An Extremist For Love, Truth And Goodness, And Thereby Rose Above His Environment. Perhaps The South, The Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

I Would Be The Last To Condemn The Thousands Of Sincere And Dedicated People Outside The Churches Who Have Labored Unselfishly Through Various Humanitarian Movements To Cure The World Of Social Evils, For I Would Rather A Man Be A Committed Humanist Than An Uncommitted Christian.

The Saving Of Our World From Pending Doom Will Come, Not Through The Complacent Adjustment Of The Conforming Majority, But Through The Creative Maladjustment Of A Nonconforming Minority.

At The Center Of Non-violence Stands The Principle Of Love.

Thought Provoking

We Will Not Be Satisfied Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters.

I Have A Dream Speech

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies.

Breaking Silence

This Will Be The Day When We Shall Bring Into Full Realization The Dream Of American Democracy - A Dream Yet Unfulfilled. A Dream Of Equality Of Opportunity, Of Privilege And Property Widely Distributed; A Dream Of A Land Where Men Will Not Take Necessities From The Many To Give Luxuries To The Few.

I Refuse To Accept The Idea That Man Is Mere Flotsam And Jetsam In The River Of Life, Unable To Influence The Unfolding Events Which Surround Him.

He Who Passively Accepts Evil Is As Much Involved In It As He Who Helps To Perpetrate It. He Who Accepts Evil Without Protesting Against It Is Really Cooperating With It.

I Feel That Segregation Is Totally Unchristian, And That It Is Against Everything The Christian Religion Stands For.

Many People In Harlem Never Go Out Of Harlem. I Mean They'd Never Even Been Downtown. And You Can See How This Bitterness Can Accumulate. Here You See People Crowded And Hovered Up In Ghettos And Slums With No Hope.they See No Way Out.

If A Man Hasn't Discovered Something That He Will Die For, He Isn't Fit To Live.

Mother Dear, One Day I'm Going To Turn This World Upside Down." --from My Brother Martin, By Christine King Farris

I Always Had A Deep Affection For Malcolm And Felt That He Had A Great Ability To Put His Finger On The Existence And The Root Of The Problem. He Was An Eloquent Spokesman For His Point Of View And No One Can Honestly Doubt That Malcolm Had A Great Concern For The Problems We Face As A Race.

It Is My Hope That As The Negro Plunges Deeper Into The Quest For Freedom And Justice He Will Plunge Even Deeper Into The Philosophy Of Non-violence. The Negro All Over The South Must Come To The Point That He Can Say To His White Brother: "we Will Match Your Capacity To Inflict Suffering With Our Capacity To Endure Suffering. We Will Meet Your Physical Force With Soul Force. We Will Not Hate You, But We Will Not Obey Your Evil Laws. We Will Soon Wear You Down By Pure Capacity To Suffer".

The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

Capitalism Does Not Permit An Even Flow Of Economic Resources. With This System, A Small Privileged Few Are Rich Beyond Conscience, And Almost All Others Are Doomed To Be Poor At Some Level. That's The Way The System Works. And Since We Know That The System Will Not Change The Rules, We Are Going To Have To Change The System.

As We Have Seen, The First Public Expression Of Disenchantment With Nonviolence Arose Around The Question Of 'self-defense.' In A Sense This Is A False Issue, For The Right To Defend One's Home And One's Person When Attacked Has Been Guaranteed Through The Ages By Common Law.

A Man Who Hasn't Found Anything He'd Die For Doesn't Deserve To Live.

A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

A World War - God Forbid! - Will Leave Only Smoldering Ashes As A Mute Testimony Of A Human Race Whose Folly Led Inexorably To Untimely Death. Yet There Are Those Who Sincerely Feel That Disarmament Is An Evil And International Negotiation Is An Abominable Waste Of Time.

Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted.

All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity And Importance And Should Be Undertaken With Painstaking Excellence.

He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be A Servant. That's The New Definition Of Greatness. ... By Giving That Definition Of Greatness, It Means That Everybody Can Be Great, Because Everybody Can Serve.

I Say To You That Our Goal Is Freedom, And I Believe We Are Going To Get There Because However Much She Strays Away From It, The Goal Of America Is Freedom.

The Holy Passion Of Friendship Is Of So Sweet And Steady And Loyal And Enduring A Nature That It Will Last Through A Whole Lifetime, If Not Asked To Lend Money In The End, We Will Remember Not The Words Of Our Enemies, But The Silence Of Our Friends

God Has Given Each Normal Person A Capacity To Achieve Some End. True, Some Are Endowed With More Talent Than Others, But God Has Left None Of Us Talentless.

Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illumines It.

I Also Came To See That Liberalism's Superficial Optimism Concerning Human Nature Caused It To Overlook The Fact That Reason Is Darkened By Sin. The More I Thought About Human Nature The More I Saw How Our Tragic Inclination For Sin Causes Us To Use Our Minds To Rationalize Our Actions. Liberalism Failed To See That Reason By Itself Is Little More Than An Instrument To Justify Man's Defensive Ways Of Thinking. Reason, Devoid Of The Purifying Power Of Faith, Can Never Free Itself From Distortions And Rationalizations.

Courageous Men Never Lose The Zest For Living Even Though Their Life Situation Is Zestless; Cowardly Men, Overwhelmed By The Uncertainties Of Life, Lose The Will To Live. We Must Constantly Build Dykes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear.

We Must See That Peace Represents A Sweeter Music, A Cosmic Melody, That Is Far Superior To The Discords Of War.

I Have A Dream Today!

Through Nonviolent Resistance The Negro Will Be Able To Rise To The Noble Height Of Opposing The Unjust System While Loving The Perpetrators Of The System.

I've Seen Too Much Hate To Want To Hate, Myself.

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