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There Is Such A Thing As The Freedom Of Exhaustion. Some People Are So Worn Down By The Yoke Of Oppression That They Give Up. [...] The Oppressed Must Never Allow The Conscience Of The Oppressor To Slumber. [...] To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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There Is Such A

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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There Is Such A Thing As The Freedom Of Exhaustion. Some People Are So Worn Down By The Yoke Of Oppression That They Give Up. [...] The Oppressed Must Never Allow The Conscience Of The Oppressor To Slumber. [...] To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

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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.

Whenever You Are Engaged In Work That Serves Humanity And Is For The Building Of Humanity, It Has Dignity And It Has Worth.

Was Not Abraham Lincoln An Extremist? - "this Nation Cannot Survive Half Slave And Half Free."

We Have Genuflected Before The God Of Science Only To Find That It Has Given Us The Atomic Bomb, Producing Fears And Anxieties That Science Can Never Mitigate.

I Was Much More Afraid In Montgomery When I Had A Gun In My House. When I Decided That I Couldn’t Keep A Gun, I Came Face-to-face With The Question Of Death And I Dealt With It. From That Point On, I No Longer Needed A Gun Nor Have I Been Afraid. Had We Become Distracted By The Question Of My Safety We Would Have Lost The Moral Offensive And Sunk To The Level Of Our Oppressors.

Christ Furnished The Spirit And Motivation While Gandhi Furnished The Method.

We Must Move Forward In The Days Ahead With Audacious Faith. The Moral Arc Of The Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

Sooner Or Later, All The Peoples Of The World Will Have To Discover A Way To Live Together In Peace, And Thereby Transform This Pending Cosmic Elegy Into A Creative Psalm Of Brotherhood.

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

Commit Yourself To The Noble Struggle For Human Rights. You Will Make A Greater Person Of Yourself, A Greater Nation Of Your Country And A Finer World To Live In.

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.

That Old Law About 'an Eye For An Eye' Leaves Everybody Blind. The Time Is Always Right To Do The Right Thing.

We Did Not Hesitate To Call Our Movement An Army. But It Was A Special Army, With No Supplies But Its Sincerity, No Uniform But Its Determination, No Arsenal Except Its Faith, No Currency But Its Conscience.

We Must Learn To Live Together As Brothers Or Perish Together As Fools.

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

Of All The Forms Of Inequality, Injustice In Health Care Is The Most Shocking And Inhumane.

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

In No Sense Do I Advocate Evading Or Defying The Law . . That Would Lead To Anarchy.

All Progress Is Precarious, And The Solution Of One Problem Brings Us Face To Face With Another Problem.

In Our Struggle Against Racial Segregation In Montgomery, Alabama, I Came To See At A Very Early Stage That A Synthesis Of Gandhi's Method Of Nonviolence And The Christian Ethic Of Love Is The Best Weapon Available To Negroes For This Struggle For Freedom And Human Dignity. It May Well Be That The Gandhian Approach Will Bring About A Solution To The Race Problem In America. His Spirit Is A Continual Reminder To Oppressed People That It Is Possible To Resist Evil And Yet Not Resort To Violence.

A Second Thing That An Individual Must Do In Seeking To Love His Enemy Is To Discover The Element Of Good In His Enemy, And Everytime You Begin To Hate That Person And Think Of Hating That Person, Realize That There Is Some Good There And Look At Those Good Points Which Will Over-balance The Bad Points.

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

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

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

When People Get Caught Up With That Which Is Right And They Are Willing To Sacrifice For It, There Is No Stopping Point Short Of Victory.

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.

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

Libertarian Party

To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It.

Don't Let Anybody Take Your Manhood.

If I Wish To Compose Or Write Or Pray Or Preach Well, I Must Be Angry. Then All The Blood In My Veins Is Stirred, And My Understanding Is Sharpened.

We Must Dispel The Negative And Harmful Atmosphere That Has Been Created By Avaricious And Unprincipled Realtors Who Engage In "blockbusting." If We Had In America Really Serious Efforts To Break Down Discrimination In Housing, And At The Same Time A Concerted Program Of Government Aid To Improve Housing For Negroes, I Think That Many White People Would Be Surprised At How Many Negroes Would Choose To Live Among Themselves, Exactly As Poles And Jews And Other Ethnic Groups Do.

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.

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

The Darwinian Concept Of The Survival Of The Fittest Has Been Substituted By A Philosophy Of The Survival Of The Slickest.

In The Current Struggle, There Is One Positive Course Of Action. There Is No Alternative, For The Alternative Would Connote A Rear March.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age. It Is Socially As Cruel And Blind As The Practice Of Cannibalism At The Dawn Of Civilization, When Men Ate Each Other Because They Had Not Yet Learned To Take Food From The Soil Or To Consume The Abundant Animal Life Around Them. The Time Has Come For Us To Civilize Ourselves By The Total, Direct And Immediate Abolition Of Poverty.

Justice Denied Anywhere Diminishes Justice Everywhere.

Unity Has Never Meant Uniformity.

Intelligence Plus Character-that Is The Goal Of True Education.

When You Cut Facilities, Slash Jobs, Abuse Power, Discriminate, Drive People Into Deeper Poverty & Shoot People Dead Whilst Refusing To Provide Answers Or Justice, The People Will Rise Up & Express Their Anger & Frustration If You Refuse To Hear Their Cries. A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

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

A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

We May Have All Come On Different Ships, But We're In The Same Boat Now.

As A Teenager I Had Never Been Able To Accept The Fact Of Having To Go To The Back Of A Bus Or Sit In The Segregated Section Of A Train. The First Time I Had Been Seated Behind A Curtain In A Dining Car, I Felt As If The Curtain Had Been Dropped On My Selfhood.

The Surest Way To Be Happy Is To Seek Happiness For Others.

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Without Justice, There Can Be No Peace.

Perhaps The Worst Sin In Life Is Knowing Right And Not Doing It.

Truth Crushed To Earth Will Rise Again.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. A Nation That Continues Year After Year To Spend More Money On Military Defense Than On Programs Of Social Uplift, Is Approaching Spiritual Death.i Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Or Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor So Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube. So I Was Increasingly Compelled To See The War As An Enemy Of The Poor.

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.

But We Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt. We Refuse To Believe That There Are Insufficient Funds In The Great Vaults Of Opportunity Of This Nation.

It Is Not Only Poverty That Torments The Negro; It Is The Fact Of Poverty Amid Plenty. It Is A Misery Generated By The Gulf Between The Affluence He Sees In The Mass Media And The Deprivation He Experiences In His Everyday Life.

One Day The South Will Know That When These Disinherited Children Of God Sat Down At Lunch Counters, They Were In Reality Standing Up For What Is Best In The American Dream And For The Most Sacred Values In Our Judaeo-christian Heritage, Thereby Bringing Our Nation Back To Those Great Wells Of Democracy Which Were Dug Deep By The Founding Fathers In Their Formulation Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence.

The Thing That We Need In The World Today, Is A Group Of Men And Women Who Will Stand Up For Right And Be Opposed To Wrong, Wherever It Is. A Group Of People Who Have Come To See That Some Things Are Wrong, Whether They’re Never Caught Up With. Some Things Are Right, Whether Nobody Sees You Doing Them Or Not.

I Cannot Sit Idly By In Atlanta And Not Be Concerned About What Happens In Birmingham.

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An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everybody Blind.

We Are All Tied Together In A Single Garment Of Destiny . . . I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are Allowed To Be What You Ought To Be.

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.

What Is More Tragic Than To See A Person Who Has Risen To The Disciplined Heights Of Tough-mindedness But Has At The Same Time Sunk To The Passionless Depths Of Hard-heartedness?

Like A Boil That Must Be Opened With All Its Ugliness To The Natural Medicines Of Air And Light, Injustice Must Be Exposed To The Light Of Human Conscience Before It Can Be Cured.

We Must Combine The Toughness Of The Serpent With The Softness Of The Dove, A Tough Mind And A Tender Heart.

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.

I Am Convinced That It Is One Of The Most Unjust Wars That Has Ever Been Fought In The History Of The World. Our Involvement In The War In Vietnam Has Torn Up The Geneva Accord. It Has Strengthened The Military-industrial Complex; It Has Strengthened The Forces Of Reaction In Our Nation. It Has Put Us Against The Self-determination Of A Vast Majority Of The Vietnamese People, And Put Us In The Position Of Protecting A Corrupt Regime That Is Stacked Against The Poor.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age.

There Is Little Hope For Us Until We Become Tough-minded Enough To Break Loose From The Shackles Of Prejudice, Half-truths, And Down-right Ignorance.

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.

You Can’t Reach Good Ends Through Evil Means, Because The Means Represent The Seed And The End Represents The Tree.

The Whirlwinds Of Revolt Will Continue To Shake The Foundations Of Our Nation Until The Bright Day Of Justice Emerges.

I Have A Dream Speech

Christianity Affirms That At The Heart Of Reality Is A Heart, A Loving Father Who Works Through History For The Salvation Of His Children. Man Cannot Save Himself, For Man Is Not The Measure Of All Things And Humanity Is Not God. Bound By The Chains Of His Own Sin And Finiteness, Man Needs A Savior.

The Way Of Acquiescence Leads To Moral And Spiritual Suicide. The Way Of Violence Leads To Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers. But, The Way Of Nonviolence Leads To Redemption And The Creation Of The Beloved Community.

Beloved Community

I Am Convinced That If We Are To Get On The Right Side Of The World Revolution, We As A Nation Must Undergo A Radical Revolution Of Values. We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society.

Breaking Silence

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

We Can Never Travel Beyond The Arms Of The Divine.

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.

The Time Has Come For An All-out War Against Poverty. The Rich Nations Must Use Their Vast Resources Of Wealth To Develop The Underdeveloped, School The Unschooled, And Feed The Unfed. Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation. No Individual Or Nation Can Be Great If It Does Not Have A Concern For "the Least Of These".

Find A Voice In A Whisper.

The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands At Times Of Challenge And Controversy.

Once You Become Dedicated To A Cause, Personal Security Is Not The Goal. What Will Happen To You Personally Does Not Matter. My Cause, My Race, Is Worth Dying For.

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

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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

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.

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

What Are You Doing For Others?

Violence Often Brings About Momentary Results.

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

We Ain't Goin' Study War No More.

Will We March Only To The Music Of Time, Or Will We, Risking Criticism And Abuse, March To The Soul-saving Music Of Eternity?

We Must Face The Appalling Fact That We Have Been Betrayed By Both The Democratic And Republican Parties.

Violence As A Way Of Achieving Racial Justice Is Both Impractical And Immoral. It Is Impractical Because It Is A Descending Spiral Ending In Destruction For All. It Is Immoral Because It Seeks To Humiliate The Opponent Rather Than Win His Understanding; It Seeks To Annihilate Rather Than To Convert. Violence Is Immoral Because It Thrives On Hatred Rather Than Love.

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

Being Responsible

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.

Every Genuine Expression Of Love Grows Out Of A Consistent And Total Surrender To God.

I Have The Audacity To Believe That Peoples Everywhere Can Have Three Meals A Day For Their Bodies, Education And Culture For Their Minds, And Dignity, Equality And Freedom For Their Spirits.

I Have A Dream That One Day This Nation Will Rise Up And Live Out The True Meaning Of Its Creed; We Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident: That All Men Are Created Equal

You Cannot Defect Form An Insight. You Cannot Unsee What You Have Seen.

Negro Leaders Sought To Negotiate With The City Fathers. But The Political Leaders Consistently Refused To Engage In Good-faith Negotiation.

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 White Poor Also Suffer Deprivation And The Humiliation Of Poverty If Not Of Color. They Are Chained By The Weight Of Discrimination Though Its Badge Of Degradation Does Not Mark Them. It Corrupts Their Lives, Frustrates Their Opportunities And Withers Their Education. In One Sense It Is More Evil For Them Because It Has Confused So Many By Prejudice That They Have Supported Their Own Oppressors.

As I Like To Say To The People In Montgomery: "the Tension In This City Is Not Between White People And Negro People. The Tension Is, At Bottom, Between Justice And Injustice, Between The Forces Of Light And The Forces Of Darkness.

We Must Work Passionately And Indefatigably To Bridge The Gulf Between Our Scientific Progress And Our Moral Progress. One Of The Great Problems Of Mankind Is That We Suffer From A Poverty Of The Spirit Which Stands In Glaring Contrast To Our Scientific And Technological Abundance. The Richer We Have Become Materially, The Poorer We Have Become Morally And Spiritually.

Call It Democracy, Or Call It Democratic Socialism, But There Must Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth Within This Country For All God's Children.

If The Negro Is To Achieve The Goal Of Integration, He Must Organize Himself Into A Militant And Nonviolent Mass Movement.

The Bombs In Vietnam Explode At Home; They Destroy The Hopes And Possibilities For A Decent America.

We Will Not Build A Peaceful World By Following A Negative Path. It Is Not Enough To Say We Will Not Wage War. It Is Necessary To Love Peace And Sacrifice For It. We Must Concentrate Not Merely On The Negative Expulsion Of War, But On The Positive Affirmation Of Peace

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

Thought Provoking

Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty We Are Free At Last.

The Road To Freedom Is A Difficult, Hard Road. It Always Makes For Temporary Setbacks.

Temporary Setbacks

It Is A Sad Fact That Because Of Comfort, Complacency, A Morbid Fear Of Communism, And Our Proneness To Adjust To Injustice, The Western Nations That Initiated So Much Of The Revolutionary Spirit Of The Modern World Have Now Become The Arch-antirevolutionaries.

Breaking Silence

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.

I Do Think There Must Be Centralized Leadership In The Sense That, Say, In Our Struggle All Of The Leaders Coordinate Their Efforts, Cooperate And, And At Least Evince A Degree Of Unity.

The Existence Of Poverty In The Us Should Not Be Accepted As A Necessary Evil Or Insoluble Problem, But Should Be Considered A Crisis Requiring Emergency Measures. It Is A Matter Of Will And Priorities, Not A Matter Of Resources.

Now Let Me Say That The Next Thing We Must Be Concerned About If We Are To Have Peace On Earth And Good Will Toward Men Is The Nonviolent Affirmation Of The Sacredness Of All Human Life. Every Man Is Somebody Because He Is A Child Of God.

Injustice Anywhere Threatens Justice Everywhere.

Injustice Anywhere

We Decided To Set Our Direct-action Program Around The Easter Season, Realizing That, With Exception Of Christmas, This Was The Largest Shopping Period Of The Year. Knowing That A Strong Economic Withdrawal Program Would Be The By-product Of Direct Action.

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.

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.

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.

Friends Are Forever Boys Are Whatever.

There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than To Build A Society With A Large Segment Of People In That Society Who Feel That They Have No Stake In It; Who Feel That That Have Nothing To Lose. People Who Have Stake In Their Society, Protect That Society, But When They Don't Have It, They Unconsciously Want To Destroy It.

Nothing To Lose

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.

Make Your Way To Death Row And Speak With The Tragic Victims Of Criminality. As They Prepare To Make Their Pathetic Walk To The Electric Chair, Their Hopeless Cry Is That Society Will Not Forgive. Capital Punishment Is Society's Final Assertion That It Will Not Forgive.

Education Without Morals Is Like A Ship Without A Compass, Merely Wandering Nowhere.

Let The Negro March. Let Him Make Pilgrimages To City Hall. Let Him Go On Freedom Rides. And Above All, Make An Effort To Understand Why He Must Do This. For If His Frustration And Despair Are Allowed To Continue Piling Up, Millions Of Negroes Will Seek Solace And Security In Black-nationalist Ideologies. And This, Inevitably, Would Lead To A Frightening Racial Nightmare.

We Are Prone To Judge Success By The Index Of Our Salaries Or The Size Of Our Automobiles Rather Than By The Quality Of Our Service And Relationship To Mankind.

[i]t Must Be Emphasized That Nonviolent Resistance Is Not A Method For Cowards; It Does Resist. If One Uses This Method Because He Is Afraid Or Merely Because He Lacks The Instruments Of Violence, He Is Not Truly Nonviolent. This Is Why Gandhi Often Said That If Cowardice Is The Only Alternative To Violence, It Is Better To Fight.

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

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.

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

I" Cannot Reach Fulfillment Without "thou." The Self Cannot Be Self Without Other Selves. Self-concern Without Other-concern Is Like A Tributary That Has No Outward Flow To The Ocean.

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

Power Is The Ability To Achieve Purpose.

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

We Must See The Great Distinction Between A Reform Movement And A Revolutionary Movement. We Are Called Upon To Raise Certain Basic Questions About The Whole Society . . . . What America Must Be Told Today Is That She Must Be Born Again. The Whole Structure Of American Life Must Be Changed.

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.

Five Score Years Ago, A Great American, In Whose Symbolic Shadow We Stand Today Signed The Emancipation Proclamation. This Momentous Decree Came As A Great Beacon Light Of Hope To Millions Of Negro Slaves Who Had Been Seared In The Flames Of Withering Injustice. It Came As A Joyous Daybreak To End The Long Night Of Their Captivity. But One Hundred Years Later, We Must Face The Tragic Fact That The Negro Is Still Not Free.

The More There Are Riots, The More Repressive Actin Will Take Place, And The More We Face The Danger Of A Right-wing Takeover And Eventually A Fascist Society.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Beauty Of Genuine Brotherhood And Peace Is More Precious Than Diamonds Or Silver Or Gold.

The Failures Of The Past Must Not Be An Excuse For The Inaction Of The Present And The Future.

Often The Oppressor Goes Along Unaware Of The Evil Involved In His Oppression So Long As The Oppressed Accepts It.

A Host Of Positive Psychological Changes Inevitably Will Result From Widespread Economic Security. The Dignity Of The Individual Will Flourish When The Decisions Concerning His Life Are In His Own Hands, When He Has The Means To Seek Self-improvement. Personal Conflicts Among Husbands, Wives And Children Will Diminish When The Unjust Measurement Of Human Worth On The Scale Of Dollars Is Eliminated.

Violence Is Anything That Denies Human Integrity, And Leads To Hopelessness And Helplessness.

The Job Of The School Is To Teach So Well That Family Background Is No Longer An Issue.

The Nations Of Asia And Africa Are Moving With Jetlike Speed Toward The Goal Of Political Independence, And We Still Creep At Horse-and-buggy Pace Toward The Gaining Of A Cup Of Coffee At A Lunch Counter.

Man Was Born Into Barbarism When Killing His Fellow Man Was A Normal Condition Of Existence. He Became Endowed With A Conscience. And He Has Now Reached The Day When Violence Toward Another Human Being Must Become As Abhorrent As Eating Another's Flesh.

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

Actually, We Who Engage In Nonviolent Direct Action Are Not The Creators Of Tension. We Merely Bring To The Surface The Hidden Tension That Is Already Alive. We Bring It Out In The Open, Where It Can Be Seen And Dealt With. Like A Boil That Can Never Be Cured So Long As It Is Covered Up But Must Be Opened With An Its Ugliness To The Natural Medicines Of Air And Light, Injustice Must Be Exposed, With All The Tension Its Exposure Creates, To The Light Of Human Conscience And The Air Of National Opinion Before It Can Be Cured.

This Is The Unusual Thing About Nonviolence -- Nobody Is Defeated, Everybody Shares In The Victory.

The Contemporary Tendency In Our Society Is To Base Our Distribution On Scarcity, Which Has Vanished, And To Compress Our Abundance Into The Overfed Mouths Of The Middle And Upper Classes Until They Gag With Superfluity. If Democracy Is To Have Breadth Of Meaning, It Is Necessary To Adjust This Inequity. It Is Not Only Moral, But It Is Also Intelligent. We Are Wasting And Degrading Human Life By Clinging To Archaic Thinking.

The Choice Is Not Between Violence And Nonviolence But Between Nonviolence And Nonexistence.

Our Age Is One Of Guided Missiles And Unguided Men.

The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands At Times Of Challenge And Controversy. Nothing Worthwhile Is Easy. Your Ability To Overcome Unfavorable Situations Will Provide You With Time To Demonstrate Your True Strength And Determination For Success. Always Set Your Standards High, Your Greatest Achievements Lie Within The Infinite Feats You Achieve In Your Life.

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.

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

Dignity Of Work

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.

I Still Believe That Standing Up For The Truth Of God Is The Greatest Thing In The World. This Is The End (purpose) Of Life. The End Of Life Is Not To Be Happy. The End Of Life Is Not To Achieve Pleasure And Avoid Pain. The End Of Life Is To Do The Will Of God, Come What May.

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

The Trailblazers In Human, Academic, Scientific And Religious Freedom Have Always Been Nonconformists.

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

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.

A Second Basic Fact That Characterizes Nonviolence Is That It Does Not Seek To Defeat Or Humiliate The Opponent, But To Win His Friendship And Understanding.

Beloved Community

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

The Labor Movement Was The Principal Force That Transformed Misery And Despair Into Hope And Progress. Out Of Its Bold Struggles, Economic And Social Reform Gave Birth To Unemployment Insurance, Old Age Pensions, Government Relief For The Destitute, And, Above All, New Wage Levels That Meant Not Mere Survival But A Tolerable Life.

If Our Economic System Is To Survive, There Has To Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth ... We Can't Have A System Where Some People Live In Superfluous, Inordinate Wealth, While Others Live In Abject Deadening Poverty.

Distribution Of Wealth

What Affects One In A Major Way, Affects All In A Minor Way.

Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties.

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.

Some Things Are Right, Whether Nobody Sees You Doing Them Or Not.

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".

You Don't Have To See The Whole Staircase, Just Take The First Step.

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

Means We Use Must Be As Pure As The Ends We Seek.

My Country, 'tis Of Thee, Sweet Land Of Liberty, Of Thee I Sing. Land Where My Fathers Died, Land Of The Pilgrim's Pride, From Every Mountainside, Let Freedom Ring.

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

If I Can Help Somebody As I Pass Along, If I Can Cheer Somebody With A Word Or Song, If I Can Show Somebody He's Traveling Wrong, Then My Living Will Not Be In Vain.

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

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

We Have Flown The Air Like Birds And Swum The Sea Like Fishes, But Have Yet To Learn The Simple Act Of Walking The Earth Like Brothers.

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.

Like Anybody, I Would Like To Have A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will.

May I Stress The Need For Courageous, Intelligent, And Dedicated Leadership... Leaders Of Sound Integrity. Leaders Not In Love With Publicity, But In Love With Justice. Leaders Not In Love With Money, But In Love With Humanity. Leaders Who Can Subject Their Particular Egos To The Greatness Of The Cause.

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.

I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

Love Has Within It A Redemptive Power. And There Is A Power There That Eventually Transforms Individuals. Just Keep Being Friendly To That Person. Just Keep Loving Them, And They Can't Stand It Too Long. Oh, They React In Many Ways In The Beginning. They React With Guilt Feelings, And Sometimes They'll Hate You A Little More At That Transition Period, But Just Keep Loving Them. And By The Power Of Your Love They Will Break Down Under The Load. That's Love, You See. It Is Redemptive.

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.

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.

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

The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands In Times Of Challenge And Controversy. The True Neighbor Will Risk His Position, His Prestige, And Even His Life For The Welfare Of Others. In Dangerous Valleys And Hazardous Pathways, He Will Lift Some Bruised And Beaten Brother To A Higher And More Noble Life.

I Oppose The War In Vietnam Because I Love America. I Speak Out Against It Not In Anger But With Anxiety And Sorrow In My Heart, And Above All With A Passionate Desire To See Our Beloved Country Stand As A Moral Example Of The World.

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.

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 Am Convinced That...in The Struggle For Righteousness Man Has Cosmic Companionship.

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

I Firmly Believe That The Gandhian Philosophy Of Nonviolent Resistance Is The Only Logical And Moral Approach To The Solution Of The Race Problem In The United States.

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

Success, Recognition, And Conformity Are The Bywords Of The Modern World Where Everyone Seems To Crave The Anesthetizing Security Of Being Identified With The Majority.

We All Can't Be Famous But We Can All Be Great And We Become Great When We Serve Others

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Frederick Carl Frieseke

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