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Science Investigates, Religion Interprets. Science Gives Man Knowledge Which Is Power, Religion Gives Man Wisdom Which Is Control. Science Deals Mainly With Facts, Religion Deals With Values. The Two Are Not Rivals. They Are Complementary.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Science Investigates, Religion Interprets.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Science Investigates, Religion Interprets. Science Gives Man Knowledge Which Is Power, Religion Gives Man Wisdom Which Is Control. Science Deals Mainly With Facts, Religion Deals With Values. The Two Are Not Rivals. They Are Complementary.

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If America Does Not Use Her Vast Resources Of Wealth To End Poverty And Make It Possible For All Of God's Children To Have The Basic Necessities Of Life, She Too Will Go To Hell.

Those Who Are Not Looking For Happiness Are The Most Likely To Find It, Because Those Who Are Searching Forget That The Surest Way To Be Happy Is To Seek Happiness For Others.

Morality Cannot Be Legislated, But Behavior Can Be Regulated. Judicial Decrees May Not Change The Heart, But They Can Restrain The Heartless.

If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable.

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.

Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Safe?

If I Hit You And You Hit Me And I Hit You Back And You Hit Me Back And Go On, You See, That Goes On Ad Infinitum. It Just Never Ends. Somewhere Somebody Must Have A Little Sense, And That's The Strong Person.

We've Got Some Difficult Days Ahead. But It Doesn't Matter With Me Now. Because I've Been To The Mountaintop. And I Don't Mind. Like Anybody, I Would Like To Live A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will. And He's Allowed Me To Go Up To The Mountaintop. And I've Looked Over. And I've Seen The Promised Land.

I Have A Dream That One Day Even The State Of Mississippi, A Desert State, Sweltering With The Heat Of Injustice And Oppression, Will Be Transformed Into An Oasis Of Freedom And Justice.

The Difference Between A Dreamer And A Visionary Is That A Dreamer Has His Eyes Closed And A Visionary Has His Eyes Open

Every Crisis Has Both Its Dangers And Its Opportunities. Each Can Spell Either Salvation Or Doom.

The Contemporary Church Is So Often A Weak, Ineffectual Voice With An Uncertain Sound. It Is So Often The Arch Supporter Of The Status Quo.

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.

A Third Reason Why We Should Love Our Enemies Is That Love Is The Only Force Capable Of Transforming An Enemy Into A Friend. We Never Get Rid Of An Enemy By Meeting Hate With Hate; We Get Rid Of An Enemy By Getting Rid Of Enmity. By Its Very Nature, Hate Destroys And Tears Down; By Its Very Nature, Love Creates And Builds Up. Love Transforms With Redemptive Power.

Ten Cures For Depression Are To Go Out And Do Something For Someone Else And Repeat It Nine Times.

Slavery In America Was Perpetuated Not Merely By Human Badness But Also By Human Blindness. ... Men Convinced Themselves That A System That Was So Economically Profitable Must Be Morally Justifiable. ... Science Was Commandeered To Prove The Biological Inferiority Of The Negro. Even Philosophical Logic Was Manipulated [exemplified By] An Aristotlian Syllogism: All Men Are Made In The Image Of God; God, As Everyone Knows, Is Not A Negro; Therefore, The Negro Is Not A Man.

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Wisdom Born Of Experience Should Tell Us That War Is Obsolete. There May Have Been A Time When War Served As A Negative Good By Preventing The Spread And Growth Of An Evil Force If We Assume That Life Is Worth Living, If We Assume That Mankind Has The Right To Survive, Then We Must Find An Alternative To War.

I Have A Dream That One Day, Down In Alabama, With Its Vicious Racists, With Its Governor Having His Lips Dripping With The Words Of "interposition" And "nullification" - One Day Right There In Alabama Little Black Boys And Black Girls Will Be Able To Join Hands With Little White Boys And White Girls As Sisters And Brothers.

Far From Being Disturbed By The Presence Of The Church, The Power Structure Of The Average Community Is Consoled By The Church's Often Vocal Sanction Of Things As They Are.

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I'm Very Glad Christ Tells Us To Love Our Neighbor And Not To Like Our Neighbor Because It's Hard To Like Someone Threatening Your Children And Throwing Fire Bombs Through Your Window, But He Asks Us To Love Them And That I Can Do

Faith Is Taking The First Step Even When You Don't See The Whole Staircase.

We Must Meet The Forces Of Hate With The Power Of Love.

Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties, And If You Think For A Moment, You Will Realize That They Take The Hardest Realities Of Life And Put Them Into Music, Only To Come Out With Some New Hope Or Sense Of Triumph.

Change Does Not Roll In On The Wheels Of Inevitability, But Comes Through Continuous Struggle.

To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It.

We Should Never Forget That Everything Adolph Hitler Did In Germany Was "legal" And Everything The Hungarian Freedom Fighers Did In Hungary Was "illegal." It Was "illegal" To Aid And Comfort A Jew In Hitler's Germany.

Nonviolence Is An Imperative In Order To Bring About Ultimate Community.

One Of The Most Persistent Ambiguities That We Face Is That Everybody Talks About Peace As A Goal. However, It Does Not Take Sharpest-eyed Sophistication To Discern That While Everbody Talks About Peace, Peace Has Become Practically Nobody's Business Among The Power-wielders. Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

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God Is Not Merely Interestd In The Freedom Of Brown Men, Yellow Men, Red Men And Black Men.he Is Interested In The Freedom Of The Whole Human Race.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing.

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Jesus Christ Was An Extremist For Love, Truth And Goodness.

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I May Not Be The Man I Want To Be; I May Not Be The Man I Ought To Be; I May Not Be The Man I Could Be; I May Not Be The Man I Truly Can Be; But Praise God, I'm Not The Man I Once Was

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My Place Is In The Sunlight Of Opportunity.

It Is Love That Will Save Our World And Our Civilization.

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Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed.

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.

Whatever My Doubts, However Heavy The Burden, I Feel That I Must Accept The Task Of Helping To Make This Nation And This World A Better Place To Live In - For All Men, Black And White Alike.

Black And White

You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace

The Moral Arc Of The Universe Bends At The Elbow Of Justice.

I've Always Tried To Be What I Call Militantly Nonviolent. I Don't Believe That Anyone Could Seriously Accuse Me Of Not Being Totally Committed To The Breakdown Of Segregation.

World Peace Through Nonviolent Means Is Neither Absurd Nor Unattainable. All Other Methods Have Failed. Thus We Must Begin Anew. Nonviolence Is A Good Starting Point. Those Of Us Who Believe In This Method Can Be Voices Of Reason, Sanity, And Understanding Amid The Voices Of Violence, Hatred, And Emotion. We Can Very Well Set A Mood Of Peace Out Of Which A System Of Peace Can Be Built.

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.

The Negro Cannot Win The Respect Of His Oppressor By Acquiescing; He Merely Increases The Oppressor's Arrogance And Contempt.

I Think That We've Got To Come To See This. The Negro Is An American.

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Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

I Refuse To Accept The View That Mankind Is So Tragically Bound To The Starless Midnight Of Racism And War That The Bright Daybreak Of Peace And Brotherhood Can Never Become A Reality... I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word.

Do To Us What You Will, And We Will Still Love You. Bomb Our Homes And Threaten Our Children, And As Difficult As It Is, We Will Still Love You. But We Assured That We'll Wear You Down By Our Capacity To Suffer, And One Day We Will Win Our Freedom. We Will Not Only Win Freedom For Ourselves, We Will So Appeal To Your Heart And Conscience That We Will Win You In The Process, And Our Victory Will Be A Double Victory.

Our Age Is One Of Guided Missiles And Unguided Men.

I Became Convinced That Noncooperation With Evil Is As Much A Moral Obligation As Is Cooperation With Good.

There Is Nothing More Majestic Than The Determined Courage Of Individuals Willing To Suffer And Sacrifice For Their Freedom And Dignity.

Somebody Must Have Sense Enough To Meet Hate With Love. Somebody Must Have Sense Enough To Meet Physical Force With Soul Force. If We Will But Try This Way, We Will Be Able To Change These Conditions And Yet At The Same Time Win The Hearts And Souls Of Those Who Have Kept These Conditions Alive A Way As Old As The Insights Of Jesus Of Nazareth, As Modern As The Techniques Of Mohandas K. Gandhi. There Is Another Way.

History Is A Great Teacher. Now Everyone Knows That The Labor Movement Did Not Diminish The Strength Of The Nation But Enlarged It. By Raising The Living Standards Of Millions, Labor Miraculously Created A Market For Industry And Lifted The Whole Nation To Undreamed Of Levels Of Production. Those Who Attack Labor Forget These Simple Truths, But History Remembers Them.

Labour Movement

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.

Black Power Alone Is No More Insurance Against Social Injustice Than White Power.

We Were Not Unmindful Of The Difficulties Involved. So We Decided To Go Through A Process Of Self-purification.

I'll Tell You, I've Seen The Lightning Flash. I've Heard The Thunder Roll. I Felt Sin-breakers Dashing, Trying To Conquer My Soul. But I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Saying Still To Fight On.

Change Does Not Roll In On The Wheels Of Inevitability, But Comes Through Continuous Struggle. And So We Must Straighten Our Backs And Work For Our Freedom. A Man Can't Ride You Unless Your Back Is Bent.

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

Thought Provoking

Life's Most Persistent And Urgent Question Is, 'what Are You Doing For Others?'

We Must All Learn To Live Together As Brothers. Or We Will All Perish Together As Foolsfor Some Strange Reason I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. And You Can Never Be What You Ought To Be Until I Am What I Ought To Be.

Love Is Creative And Redemptive. Love Builds Up And Unites; Hate Tears Down And Destroys. The Aftermath Of The ‘fight With Fire’ Method...is Bitterness And Chaos, The Aftermath Of The Love Method Is Reconciliation And Creation Of The Beloved Community...yes , Love-which Means Understanding, Creative, Redemptive Goodwill, Even For One’s Enemies-is The Solution

Everybody Can Be Great, Because Everybody Can Serve. [...] You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace.

Man Is Not Made For The State; The State Is Made For Man. To Deprive Man Of Freedom Is To Relegate Him To The Status Of A Thing, Rather Than Elevate Him To The Status Of A Person. Man Must Never Be Treated As A Means To The End Of The State, But Always As An End Within Himself.

In Struggling For Human Dignity The Oppressed People Of The World Must Not Allow Themselves To Become Bitter Or Indulge In Hate Campaigns. To Retaliate With Hate And Bitterness Would Do Nothing But Intensify The Hate In The World. Along The Way Of Life, Someone Must Have Sense Enough And Morality Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate. This Can Be Done Only By Projecting The Ethics Of Love To The Center Of Our Lives.

Love Even For Enemies Is The Key To The Solution Of The Problems Of Our World.

The Belief That God Will Do Everything For Man Is As Untenable As The Belief That Man Can Do Everything For Himself. It, Too, Is Based On A Lack Of Faith. We Must Learn That To Expect God To Do Everything While We Do Nothing Is Not Faith But Superstition.

Hate Multiplies Hate, Violence Multiplies Violence, And Toughness Multiplies Toughness In A Descending Spiral Of Destruction.

The Means By Which We Live Have Outdistanced The Ends For Which We Live.

Inspirational Life

Oh, The Worst Of All Tragedies Is Not To Die Young, But To Live Until I Am Seventy Five And Yet Not Ever Truly To Have Lived.

Three Hundred Years Of Humiliation, Abuse And Deprivation Cannot Be Expected To Find Voice In A Whisper.

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.

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.

Whatever Your Life's Work Is, Do It Well. A Man Should Do His Job So Well That The Living, The Dead, And The Unborn Could Do It No Better.

My Friends, All I'm Trying To Say Is That If We Are To Go Forward Today, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover Some Mighty Precious Values That We've Left Behind. That's The Only Way That We Would Be Able To Make Of Our World A Better World, And To Make Of This World What God Wants It To Be And The Real Purpose And Meaning Of It.

It Is Hardly A Moral Act To Encourage Others Patiently To Accept Injustice Which He Himself Does Not Endure.

Our Scientific Power Has Outrun Our Spiritual Power. We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men. Our Hope For Creative Living Lies In Our Ability To Reestablish The Spiritual Needs Of Our Lives In Personal Character And Social Justice. Without This Spiritual And Moral Reawakening We Shall Destroy Ourselves In The Misuse Of Our Own Instruments.

By Its Very Nature, Hate Destroys And Tears Down; By Its Very Nature, Love Creates And Builds Up.

How Hard It Is For People To Live Without Someone To Look Down Upon-really To Look Down Upon. It Is Not Just That They Feel Cheated Out Of Someone To Hate. It Is That They Are Compelled To Look More Closely Into Themselves And What They Don't Like About Themselves.

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

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

I Admire The Good Samaritan, But I Don't Want To Be One.i Don't Want To Spend My Life Picking Up People By The Side Of The Road After They Have Been Beaten Up And Robbed.i Want To Change The Jericho Road, So That Everybody Has An Opportunity For A Job, Education, Security, Health.

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.

A Society Is Always Eager To Cover Misdeeds With A Cloak Of Forgetfulness, But No Society Can Fully Repress An Ugly Past When The Ravages Persist Into The Present. America Owes A Debt Of Justice Which It Has Only Begun To Pay.

Faith Can Give Us Courage To Face The Uncertainties Of The Future.

We Come Humbly To Say To The Men In The Forefront Of Our Government That The Civil Rights Issue Is Not An Ephemeral, Evanescent Domestic Issue That Can Be Kicked About By Reactionary Guardians Of The Status Quo; It Is Rather An Eternal Moral Issue Which May Well Determine The Destiny Of Our Nation In The Ideological Struggle With Communism. The Hour Is Late. The Clock Of Destiny Is Ticking Out. We Must Act Now, Before It Is Too Late.

You Have Very Little Morally Persuasive Power With People Who Can Feel Your Underlying Contempt.

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

I Think That My Strong Determination For Justice Comes From The Very Strong, Dynamic Personality Of My Father ... I Have Rarely Ever Met A Person More Fearless And Courageous Than My Father ... The Thing That I Admire Most About My Dad Is His Genuine Christian Character. He Is A Man Of Real Integrity, Deeply Committed To Moral And Ethical Principles. He Is Conscientious In All Of His Undertakings ... If I Had A Problem I Could Always Call Daddy.

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

Libertarian Party

Vanity Asks, Is It Popular? Politics Ask, Will It Work? But Conscience And Morality Ask, Is It Right?

We Cannot Walk Alone.

Never Could I Advocate Nonviolence In This Country And Not Advocate Nonviolence For The Whole World.

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change. Every Society Has Its Protectors Of Status Quo And Its Fraternities Of The Indifferent Who Are Notorious For Sleeping Through Revolutions. 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.

Millions Of Citizens Are Deeply Disturbed That The Military-industrial Complex Too Often Shapes National Policy, But They Do Not Want To Be Considered Unpatriotic.

It Is No Longer A Choice Between Violence And Nonviolence In This World; It's Nonviolence Or Nonexistence. That Is Where We Are Today.

A Nation That Will Keep People In Slavery For 244 Years Will "thingify" Them And Make Them Things. And Therefore, They Will Exploit Them And Poor People Generally Economically. And A Nation That Will Exploit Economically Will Have To Have Foreign Investments And Everything Else, And It Will Have To Use Its Military Might To Protect Them. All Of These Problems Are Tied Together. What I'm Saying Today Is That We Must Go From This Convention And Say, "america, You Must Be Born Again!"

Our Nettlesome Task Is To Discover How To Organize Our Strength Into Compelling Power.

I Think That We Must Face The Fact That In Reality, You Cannot Have Economic And Political Equality Without Having Some Form Of Social Equality. I Think This Is Inevitable.

We Cannot Walk Alone. And As We Walk, We Must Make The Pledge That We Shall Always March Ahead. We Cannot Turn Back.

I Have A Dream Speech

When I Am Commanded To Love, I Am Commanded To Restore Community, To Resist Injustice, And To Meet The Needs Of My Brothers.

Perhaps...the Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

Political Extremism

I Am In Birmingham Because Injustice Is Here. Just As The Eighth Century Prophets Left Their Little Villages And Carried Their "thus Saith The Lord" Far Beyond The Boundaries Of Their Home Towns; And Just As The Apostle Paul Left His Little Village Of Tarsus And Carried The Gospel Of Jesus Christ To Practically Every Hamlet And City Of The Graeco-roman World, I Too Am Compelled To Carry The Gospel Of Freedom Beyond My Particular Home Town. Like Paul, I Must Constantly Respond To The Macedonian Call For Aid.

Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!

As Long As There Is Poverty In The World I Can Never Be Rich, Even If I Have A Billion Dollars. As Long As Diseases Are Rampant And Millions Of People In This World Cannot Expect To Live More Than Twenty-eight Or Thirty Years, I Can Never Be Totally Healthy Even If I Just Got A Good Checkup At Mayo Clinic. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. This Is The Way Our World Is Made. No Individual Or Nation Can Stand Out Boasting Of Being Independent. We Are Interdependent.

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." Was Not Amos An Extremist For Justice: "let Justice Roll Down Like Waters And Righteousness Like An Ever-flowing Stream." Was Not Paul An Extremist For The Christian Gospel: "i Bear In My Body The Marks Of The Lord Jesus."

If You Lose Hope, Somehow You Lose The Vitality That Keeps Moving, You Lose That Courage To Be, That Quality That Helps You Go On In Spite Of It All. And So Today I Still Have A Dream.

A Piece Of Freedom Is No Longer Enough For Human Beings...unlike Bread, A Slice Of Liberty Does Not Finish Hunger. Freedom Is Like Life. It Cannot Be Had In Installments. Freedom Is Indivisible--we Have It All, Or We Are Not Free.

I Think In This Phase, After The Negro Emerges In And From The Desegregated Society, Then A Great Deal Of Time Must Be Spent In Improving Standards Which Lag Behind To A Large Extent Because Of Segregation,discrimination, And The Legacy Of Slavery.

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change.

Social Activism

Property Is Intended To Serve Life, And No Matter How Much We Surround It With Rights And Respect, It Has No Personal Being. It Is Part Of The Earth Man Walks On. It Is Not Man.

We Must Discover The Power Of Love, The Power, The Redemptive Power Of Love. And When We Discover That We Will Be Able To Make Of This Old World A New World. We Will Be Able To Make Men Better. Love Is The Only Way.

We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society. When Machines And Computers, Profit Motives And Property Rights Are Considered More Important Than People, The Giant Triplets Of Racism, Materialism, And Militarism Are Incapable Of Being Conquered.

Like Paul, I Must Constantly Respond To The Macedonian Call For Aid.

Again And Again We Must Rise To The Majestic Heights Of Meeting Physical Force With Soul Force.

March On Washington

Without Love, There Is No Reason To Know Anyone, For Love Will In The End Connect Us To Our Neighbors, Our Children And Our Hearts.

Our Lives Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter.

To Sway An Audience, You Must Watch Them As You Speak.

Another Way That You Love Your Enemy Is This: When The Opportunity Presents Itself For You To Defeat Your Enemy, That Is The Time Which You Must Not Do It.

If We Do An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth, We Will Be A Blind And Toothless Nation.

There's Something About Love That Builds Up And Is Creative. There Is Something About Hate That Tears Down And Is Destructive. So Love Your Enemies.

We Have Waited For More Than Three Hundred And Forty Years For Our Constitutional And God-given Rights.

I Had A Very Depressing Response Because I Realized That These Were My Own People, These Were Negroes Throwing Eggs At Me. I'm Concerned About The Fact That Maybe All Of Us Have Contributed To This By Not Working Harder To Get Rid Of The Conditions, The Poverty, The Social Isolation, And All Of The Conditions That Cause Individuals To Respond Like This.

Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

I Feel That When A White Child Goes To School Only With White Children, Unconsciously That Child Grows Up In Many Instances Devoid Of A World Perspective. There Is An Unconscious Provincialism, And It Can Develop Into An Unconscious Superiority Complex Just As A Negro Develops An Unconscious Inferiority Complex.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear. That Old Law About "an Eye For An Eye" Leaves Everybody Blind... The Time Is Always Right To Do The Right Thing. Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

We Have Before Us The Glorious Opportunity To Inject A New Dimension Of Love Into The Veins Of Our Civilization.

Love Is Basic For The Very Survival Of Mankind. I'm Convinced That Love Is The Only Absolute Ultimately; Love Is The Highest Good. He Who Loves Has Somehow Discovered The Meaning Of Ultimate Reality. He Who Hates Does Not Know God; He Who Hates Has No Knowledge Of God. Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World.

Lord Help Me To See M. L. King As M. L. King In His True Perspective.

Hate Destroys The Hater.

The Major Problem Of Life Is Learning How To Handle The Costly Interruptions.

Man Must Never Be Treated As A Means To The End Of The State, But Always As An End Within Himself.

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

Love Is Understanding, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men, So That You Love Everybody.

Everybody Has The Blues. Everybody Longs For Meaning. Everybody Needs To Love And Be Loved. Everybody Needs To Clap Hands And Be Happy. Everybody Longs For Faith. In Music, Especially This Broad Category Called Jazz, There Is A Stepping-stone To All Of These.

In Any Nonviolent Campaign There Are Four Basic Steps: Collection Of The Facts To Determine Whether Injustices Exist; Negotiation; Self-purification; And Direct Action.

It Is Not A Sign Of Weakness, But A Sign Of High Maturity, To Rise To The Level Of Self-criticism.

In Our Glorious Fight For Civil Rights, We Must Guard Against Being Fooled By False Slogans, Such As 'right-to-work.' It Provides No 'rights' And No 'works.' Its Purpose Is To Destroy Labor Unions And The Freedom Of Collective Bargaining…. We Demand This Fraud Be Stopped.

The Hope Of The World Is Still In Dedicated Minorities. The Trail-blazers In Human, Scientific And Religious Freedom Have Always Been In A Minority.

We Were Taking The Black Young Men Who Had Been Crippled By Our Society And Sending Them Eight Thousand Miles Away To Guarantee Liberties In Southeast Asia Which They Had Not Found In Southwest Georgia And East Harlem.

I Still Believe That One Day Mankind Will Bow Before The Altars Of God And Be Crowned Triumphant Over War And Bloodshed, And Nonviolent Redemptive Goodwill Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

Courage Is The Power Of The Mind To Overcome Fear.

Certainly I'm Not Saying That You Sit Down And Patiently Accept Injustice. I'm Talking About A Very Strong Force, Where You Stand Up With All Your Might Against An Evil System, And You Are Not A Coward.

Today We Know With Certainty That Segregation Is Dead. The Only Question Remaining Is How Costly Will Be The Funeral.

There Comes A Time When One Must Take The Position That Is Neither Safe Nor Politic Nor Popular, But He Must Do It Because Conscience Tells Him It Is Right.

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

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies... True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Look On Uneasily Upon The Glaring Contrast Of Poverty And Wealth With Righteous Indignation.

We Know Nothing About Africa, Although Our Roots Are There In Terms Of Our Forbearers. But I Mean As Far As The Average Negro Today, He Knows Nothing About Africa. And I Think He's Got To Face The Fact That He Is An American, His Culture Is Basically American, And One Becomes Adjusted To This When He Realizes What, What He Is.

Discrimination Is A Hellhound That Gnaws At Negroes In Every Waking Moment Of Their Lives To Remind Them That The Lie Of Their Inferiority Is Accepted As Truth In The Society Dominating Them.

President Lyndon Johnson's High Spirits Were Marked As He Circulated Among The Many Guests Whom He Had Invited To Witness An Event He Confidently Felt To Be Historic, The Signing Of The 1965 Voting Rights Act.... The Bill That Lay On The Polished Mahogany Desk Was Born In Violence In Selma, Alabama, Where A Stubborn Sheriff... Had Stumbled Against The Future.

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.

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

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.

When A Nation Becomes Obsessed With The Guns Of War, It Loses Its Social Perspective.... There Is Something About A War Like This That Makes People Insensitive. It Dulls The Conscience. It Strengthens The Forces Of Reaction, And It Brings Into Being Bitterness And Hatred And Violence.

The Method Of Nonviolence Seeks Not To Humiliate And Not To Defeat The Oppressor, But It Seeks To Win His Friendship And His Understanding. And Thereby And Therefore The Aftermath Of This Method Is Reconciliation.

Without God, All Of Our Efforts Turn To Ashes And Our Sunrise Into The Darkest Of Nights.

To Have Peace In The World, Men & Nations Must Embrace The Nonviolent Assertion That Ends And Means Must Cohere.

If America's Soul Becomes Totally Poisoned, Part Of The Autopsy Must Read Vietnam. It Can Never Be Saved So Long As It Destroys The Hopes Of Men The World Over.

It Does Not Matter How Long You Live, But How Well You Do It.

The Real Problem Is That Through Our Scientific Genius We’ve Made Of The World A Neighborhood, But Through Our Moral And Spiritual Genius We’ve Failed To Make Of It A Brotherhood.

I Decide On The Basis Of Conscience. A Genuine Leader Doesn't Reflect Consensus, He Molds Consensus.

We Must Stand Up And Say, "i'm Black And I'm Beautiful," And This Self-affirmation Is The Black Man's Need, Made Compelling By The White Man's Crimes Against Him.

I Was Not Afraid Of The Words Of The Violent, But Of The Silence Of The Honest.

Israel... Is One Of The Great Outpost Of Democracy In The World

The Old Law Of An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everyone Blind. It Destroys Communities And Makes Humanity Impossible. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers... In Winning Our Freedom, We Will So Appeal To You Heart And Conscience That We Will Win You In The Process.

Please Be Peaceful. We Believe In Law And Order. We Are Not Advocating Violence, I Want You To Love Your Enemies... For What We Are Doing Is Right, What We Are Doing Is Just -- And God Is With Us.

If We Get Setbacks And If Something Happens Where The Civil Rights Bill Is Watered Down, For Instance, If The Negro Feels That He Can Do Nothing But Move From One Ghetto To Another And One Slum To Another, The Despair And The Disappointment Will Be So Great That It Will Be Very Difficult To Keep The Struggle Disciplined And Nonviolent.

Individuals May See The Moral Light And Voluntarily Give Up Their Unjust Posture; But, As Reinhold Niebuhr Has Reminded Us, Groups Are More Immoral Than Individuals.

No Man (sic) Has Learned To Live Until He Can Rise Above The Narrow Confines Of His Individualistic Concerns To The Broader Concerns Of All Humanity. Length Without Breadth Is Like A Self-contained Tributary Having No Outward Flow To The Ocean. Stagnant, Still And Stale, It Lacks Both Life And Freshness. In Order To Live Creatively And Meaningfully, Our Self-concern Must Be Wedded To Other Concerns.

Even In The Inevitable Moments When All Seems Hopeless, Men Know That Without Hope They Cannot Really Live, And In Agonizing Desperation They Cry For The Bread Of Hope.

On Some Positions, Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Expedient? And Then Expedience Comes Along And Asks The Question, Is It Politic? Vanity Asks The Question, Is It Popular? Conscience Asks The Question, Is It Right? There Comes A Time When One Must Take The Position That Is Neither Safe Nor Politic Nor Popular, But He Must Do It Because Conscience Tells Him It Is Right.

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

A Church That Has Lost Its Voice For Justice Is A Church That Has Lost Its Relevance In The World.

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.

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