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Somehow This Madness Must Cease. We Must Stop Now. I Speak As A Child Of God And Brother To The Suffering Poor Of Vietnam. I Speak For Those Whose Land Is Being Laid Waste, Whose Homes Are Being Destroyed, Whose Culture Is Being Subverted. I Speak For The Poor In America Who Are Paying The Double Price Of Smashed Hopes At Home And Death And Corruption In Vietnam. I Speak As A Citizen Of The World, For The World As It Stands Aghast At The Path We Have Taken. I Speak As An American To The Leaders Of My Own Nation. The Great Initiative In This War Is Ours. The Initiative To Stop It Must Be Ours.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Somehow This Madness Must

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Somehow This Madness Must Cease. We Must Stop Now. I Speak As A Child Of God And Brother To The Suffering Poor Of Vietnam. I Speak For Those Whose Land Is Being Laid Waste, Whose Homes Are Being Destroyed, Whose Culture Is Being Subverted. I Speak For The Poor In America Who Are Paying The Double Price Of Smashed Hopes At Home And Death And Corruption In Vietnam. I Speak As A Citizen Of The World, For The World As It Stands Aghast At The Path We Have Taken. I Speak As An American To The Leaders Of My Own Nation. The Great Initiative In This War Is Ours. The Initiative To Stop It Must Be Ours.

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Brutality Was Imprisoned In A Lumious Glare Revealing The Naked Truth To The Whole World

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And See Ominous Clouds Of Inferiority Beginning To Form In Her Little Mental Sky.

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Never Forget That Everything Hitler Did In Germany Was Legal.

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Thought Provoking

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A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard. On Blacks In America; Address At Birmingham Al

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I Plan To Stand By Nonviolence, Because I Have Found It To Be A Philosophy Of Life That Regulates Not Only My Dealings In The Struggle For Racial Justice, But Also My Dealings With People, And With My Own Self.

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Important Values

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If You Can't Be A Sun, Be A Star. For It Isn't By Size That You Win Or Fail. Be The Best Of Whatever You Are.

The Negro's Problem Will Not Be Solved By Running Away.

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.

Power Is The Ability To Achieve Purpose.

The Negro Has No Room To Make Any Substantial Compromises Because His Store Of Advantages Is Too Small. He Must Press Unrelentingly For Quality, Integrated Education Or His Whole Drive For Freedom Will Be Undermined By The Absence Of A Most Vital And Indispensable Element - Learning.

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Segregation Is The Adultery Of An Illicit Intercourse Between Injustice And Immorality.

The Function Of Education, Therefore, Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. But Education Which Stops With Efficiency May Prove The Greatest Menace To Society. The Most Dangerous Criminal May Be The Man Gifted With Reason, But With No Morals.

I've Decided To Stick With Love.

It's Not How Long A Man Lives, But How Well He Uses The Time Allotted Him.

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

Everyone Has The Power For Greatness, Not For Fame But Greatness, Because Greatness Is Determined By Service.

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I'm Grateful To God That, Through The Negro Church, The Dimension Of Nonviolence Entered Our Struggle.

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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.

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.

Look To A Day When People Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin.

I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be.

We Should Never Forget That Everything Adolf Hitler Did In Germany Was “legal” And Everything The Hungarian Freedom Fighters Did In Hungary Was “illegal.” It Was “illegal” To Aid And Comfort A Jew In Hitler’s Germany. Even So, I Am Sure That, Had I Lived In Germany At The Time, I Would Have Aided And Comforted My Jewish Brothers. If Todayi Lived In A Communist Country Where Certain Principles Dear To The Christian Faith Are Suppressed, I Would Openly Advocate Disobeying That Country's Antireligious Laws.

Are You Able To Accept Blows Without Retaliating?" And "are You Able To Endure The Ordeals Of Jail?"

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

Too Often An Institution Serves To Bless The Majority Opinion. Today When Too Many Move To The Rhythmic Beat Of The Status Quo, Whoever Would Be A Christian Must Be A Nonconformist.

They Asked If Our Own Nation Wasn't Using Massive Doses Of Violence To Solve Its Problems, To Bring About The Changes It Wanted. Their Questions Hit Home, And 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. For The Sake Of Those Boys, For The Sake Of This Government, For The Sake Of Hundreds Of Thousands Trembling Under Our Violence, I Cannot Be Silent.

We Aren't Going To Let Any Mace Stop Us. We Are Masters In Our Nonviolent Movement In Disarming Police Forces; They Don't Know What To Do.

I Don't Think You Can Be In Public Life Without Being Called Bad Names.

Make No Mistake About Those Who Call Themselves Anti Zionist Are Anti Semitic.

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

The Strong Man Is The Man Who Can Stand Up For His Rights And Not Hit Back.

Now Is The Time To Make Justice A Reality For All Of God's Children.

Violence Multiplies Violence.

The Marvelous New Militancy Which Has Engulfed The Negro Community Must Not Lead Us To A Distrust Of All White People, For Many Of Our White Brothers, As Evidenced By Their Presence Here Today, Have Come To Realize That Their Destiny Is Tied Up With Our Destiny And Their Freedom Is Inextricably Bound To Our Freedom.

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

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.

Our Generation Will Not Have Regretted Both Perverse Crimes, And The Eerie Silence Of The Kind

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

We Were All Involved In The Death Of John Kennedy. We Tolerated Hate; We Tolerated The Sick Stimulation Of Violence In All Walks Of Life; And We Tolerated The Differential Application Of Law, Which Said That A Man's Life Was Sacred Only If We Agreed With His Views.

Whatever We Do, We Must Keep God In The Forefront. Let Us Be Christian In All Of Our Actions. But I Want To Tell You This Evening That It Is Not Enough For Us To Talk About Love, Love Is One Of The Pivotal Points Of The Christian Face, Faith. There Is Another Side Called Justice. And Justice Is Really Love In Calculation. Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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

You Have To Keep Moving Forward

Keep Moving Forward

If We Are To Go Forward, We Must Go Back And Rediscover These Precious Values - That All Reality Hinges On Moral Foundations And That All Reality Has Spiritual Control.

African American

A Good Many Observers Have Remarked That If Equality Could Come At Once, The Negro Would Not Be Ready For It. I Submit That The White American Is Even More Unprepared.

It Is Purposeless To Tell Negroes They Should Not Be Enraged When They Should Be. Indeed, They Will Be Mentally Healthier If They Do Not Suppress Rage, But Vent It Constructively And Use Its Energy Peacefully But Forcefully To Cripple The Operations Of An Oppressive Society. Civil Disobedience Can Utilize The Militance Wasted In Riots To Seize Clothes Or Groceries Many Do Not Even Want.

We Had No Alternative Except That Of Preparing For Direct Action, Whereby We Would Present Our Very Bodies As A Means Of Laying Our Case Before The Conscience Of The Local And National Community.

The First Principle Of Value That We Need To Rediscover Is This: That All Reality Hinges On Moral Foundations. In Other Words, That This Is A Moral Universe, And That There Are Moral Laws Of The Universe Just As Abiding As The Physical Laws.

It Is Always The Right Time To Do The Right Thing.

When Any Society Says That I Cannot Marry A Certain Person, That Society Has Cut Off A Segment Of My Freedom.

Whom You Would Change, You Must First Love.

We Must Move Past Indecision To Action. We Must Find New Ways To Speak For Peace In Vietnam And For Justice Throughout The Developing World, A World That Borders On Our Doors. If We Do Not Act, We Shall Surely Be Dragged Down The Long, Dark, And Shameful Corridors Of Time Reserved For Those Who Possess Power Without Compassion, Might Without Morality, And Strength Without Sight.

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.

What Good Is Having The Right To Sit At A Lunch Counter If You Can't Afford To Buy A Hamburger?

Our Problem Is Not To Be Rid Of Fear But Rather To Harness And Master It.

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

Communism Forgets That Life Is Individual. Capitalism Forgets That Life Is Social, And The Kingdom Of Brotherhood Is Found Neither In The Thesis Of Communism Nor The Antithesis Of Capitalism But In A Higher Synthesis. It Is Found In A Higher Synthesis That Combines The Truths Of Both.

Religion Operates Not Only On The Vertical Plane But Also On The Horizontal. It Seeks Not Only To Integrate Men With God But To Integrate Men With Men And Each Man With Himself.

I Imagine You Already Know That I Am Much More Socialistic In My Economic Theory Than Capitalistic.

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 All Too Often Have Socialism For The Rich And Rugged Free Market Capitalism For The Poor.

African American

As Long As The Mind Is Enslaved, The Body Can Never Be Free. Psychological Freedom, A Firm Sense Of Self-esteem, Is The Most Powerful Weapon Against The Long Night Of Physical Slavery.

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

Racial Segregation Must Be Seen For What It Is, And That Is An Evil System, A New Form Of Slavery Covered Up With Certain Niceties Of Complexity.

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

The Question Is Not Whether We Will Be Extremists, But What Kind Of Extremists We Will Be... The Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

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.

At The Heart Of All That Civilization Has Meant And Developed Is 'community' - The Mutually Cooperative And Voluntary Venture Of Man To Assume A Semblance Of Responsibility For His Brother.

There's Another Reason Why You Should Love Your Enemies, And That Is Because Hate Distorts The Personality Of The Hater. We Usually Think Of What Hate Does For The Individual Hated Or The Individuals Hated Or The Groups Hated. But It Is Even More Tragic, It Is Even More Ruinous And Injurious To The Individual Who Hates. [...] For The Person Who Hates, The True Becomes False And The False Becomes True. That's What Hate Does.

Power Without Love Is Reckless And Abusive, And Love Without Power Is Sentimental And Anemic. Power At Its Best Is Love Implementing The Demands Of Justice, And Justice At Its Best Is Power Correcting Everything That Stands Against Love.

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.

Carve A Tunnel Of Hope Through The Dark Mountain Of Disappointment.

I Feel That Non-violence Is Really The Only Way That We Can Follow Because Violence Is Just So Self-defeating. A Riot Ends Up Creating Many More Problems For The Negro Community Than It Solved. We Can Through Violence Burn Down A Building, But You Can't Establish Justice. You Can Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder Through Violence. You Can Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate. And What We're Trying To Get Rid Of Is Hate, Injustice, And All Of These Other Things That Continue The Long Night Of Man's Inhumanity To Man.

But By All Means, Keep Moving.

Everybody Can Be Great...because Anybody Can Serve. You Don't Have To Have A College Degree To Serve.

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World.

Whenever Men And Women Straighten Their Backs Up, They Are Going Somewhere, Because A Man Can't Ride Your Back Unless It Is Bent

The Most Dangerous Type Of Atheism Is Not Theoretical Atheism, But Practical Atheism -that's The Most Dangerous Type. And The World, Even The Church, Is Filled Up With People Who Pay Lip Service To God And Not Life Service. And There Is Always A Danger That We Will Make It Appear Externally That We Believe In God When Internally We Don't. We Say With Our Mouths That We Believe In Him, But We Live With Our Lives Like He Never Existed. That Is The Ever-present Danger Confronting Religion. That's A Dangerous Type Of Atheism.

By Opening Our Lives To God In Christ, We Become New Creatures. This Experience, Which Jesus Spoke Of As The New Birth, Is Essential If We Are To Be Transformed Nonconformists . . . Only Through An Inner Spiritual Transformation Do We Gain The Strength To Fight Vigorously The Evils Of The World In A Humble And Loving Spirit.

I Know That God Is Not Going To Willfully Hurt Us. Why There Is Suffering Is The Business Of The Lord, But He Never Seems To Give Us More Than We Can Bear.

When I Took Up The Cross I Recognized It's Meaning. The Cross Is Something That You Bear, And Ultimately, That You Die On.

I’ve Been To The Mountaintop

The Purpose Of Direct Action Is To Create A Situation So Crisis-packed That It Will Inevitably Open The Door To Negotiation.

If We Are To Have Peace On Earth, Our Loyalties Must Become Ecumenical Rather Than Sectional. Our Loyalties Must Transcend Our Race, Our Tribe, Our Class, And Our Nation; And This Means We Must Develop A World Perspective.

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 Not Enough To Say We Must Not Wage War. It Is Necessary To Love Peace And Sacrifice For It.

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