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True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. It Comes To See That A System That Produces Beggars Needs To Be Repaved. We Are Called To Be The Good Samaritan, But After You Lift So Many People Out Of The Ditch You Start To Ask, Maybe The Whole Road To Jericho Needs To Be Repaved.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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True Compassion Is More

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. It Comes To See That A System That Produces Beggars Needs To Be Repaved. We Are Called To Be The Good Samaritan, But After You Lift So Many People Out Of The Ditch You Start To Ask, Maybe The Whole Road To Jericho Needs To Be Repaved.

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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.

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.

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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.

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

The Labor Movement Was The Principal Force That Transformed Misery And Despair Into Hope And Progress.

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.

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

The First Question Which The Priest And The Levite Asked Was: 'if I Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Me?' But... The Good Samaritan Reversed The Question: 'if I Do Not Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Him?'

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

And I Must Say Tonight That A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard. And What Is It America Has Failed To Hear? It Has Failed To Hear That The Plight Of The Negro Poor Has Worsened Over The Last Twelve Or Fifteen Years. It Has Failed To Hear That The Promises Of Freedom And Justice Have Not Been Met. And It Has Failed To Hear That Large Segments Of White Society Are More Concerned About Tranquility And The Status Quo Than About Justice And Humanity.

I Have Almost Reached The Regrettable Conclusion That The Negro's Great Stumbling Block In The Stride Toward Freedom Is Not The White Citizens Councilor Or The Ku Klux Klanner But The White Moderate Who Is More Devoted To Order Than To Justice; Who Prefers A Negative Peace Which Is The Absence Of Tension To A Positive Peace Which Is The Presence Of Justice.

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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.

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

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Procrastination

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

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

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There Is No Gain Without Struggle.

Love Is The Only Force Capable Of Transforming An Enemy Into Friend.

I Never Intend To Adjust Myself To The Madness Of Militarism.

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.

Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Safe?

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Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It.

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Be The Best Of Whatever You Are.

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

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What You Get With Violence Can Be Maintained Only With Violence

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

Temporary Setbacks

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

We Must Use Time Creatively.

Just As It Is The Duty Of All Men To Obey Just Laws, So It Is The Duty Of All Men To Disobey Unjust Laws.

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America Must Begin The Struggle For Democracy At Home. The Advocacy Of Free Elections In Europe By American Officials Is Hypocrisy When Free Elections Are Not Held In Great Sections Of America.

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.

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

The Idea Of A Superior Or Inferior Race Is A Myth That Has Been Completely Refuted By Anthropological Evidence.

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Stand Up For Justice, Stand Up For Truth; And God Will Be At Your Side Forever.

This Revolution Is Genuine Because It Was Born From The Same Womb That Always Gives Birth To Massive Social Upheavals - The Womb Of Intolerable Conditions And Unendurable Situations.

In Our Society It Is Murder, Psychologically, To Deprive A Man Of A Job Or An Income. You Are In Substance Saying To That Man That He Has No Right To Exist. You Are In A Real Way Depriving Him Of Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness, Denying In His Case The Very Creed Of His Society.

Without Denying The Value Of Scientific Endeavor, There Is A Striking Absurdity In Committing Billions To Reach The Moon Where No People Live, While Only A Fraction Of That Amount Is Appropriated To Service The Densely Populated Slums.

Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

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

The Potential Beauty Of Human Life Is Constantly Made Ugly By Man's Ever Recurring Song Of Retaliation. The Oceans Of History Are Made Turbulent By The Ever Rising Tides Of Revenge. Man Has Never Risen Above The Injunction Of The Lex Talionis: "life For Life, Eye For Eye, Tooth For Tooth, Hand For Hand, Foot For Foot." In Spite Of The Fact That The Law Of Revenge Solves No Social Problems, Men Continue To Follow Its Disastrous Leading. History Is Cluttered With The Wreckage Of Nations And Individuals That Pursued This Self-defeating Path.

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I Was Convinced That Worship At Its Best Is A Social Experience With People Of All Levels Of Life Coming Together To Realize Their Oneness And Unity Under God. Whenever The Church, Consciously Or Unconsciously, Caters To One Class It Loses The Spiritual Force Of The "whosoever Will, Let Him Come, Doctrine And Is In Danger Of Becoming A Little More Than A Social Club With A Thin Veneer Of Religiosity."

As A Young Man With Most Of My Life Ahead Of Me, I Decided Early To Give My Life To Something Eternal And Absolute. Not To These Little Gods That Are Here Today And Gone Tomorrow. But To God Who Is The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.

If You Can't Fly Then Run, If You Can't Run Then Walk, If You Can't Walk Then Crawl, But Whatever You Do You Have To Keep Moving Forward.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Self Cannot Be Self Without Other Selves.

I Am Convinced That Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. It Is Not An Expression Of Impractical Idealism, But Of Practical Realism.

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

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

Social Transformation

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.

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

Before You Finish Eating Breakfast In The Morning, You've Depended On More Than Half Of The World.

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.

Now Is The Time To Rise From The Dark And Desolate Valley Of Segregation To The Sunlit Path Of Racial Justice.

The 'tide In The Affairs Of Men' Does Not Remain At The Flood; It Ebbs. We May Cry Out Desperately For Time To Pause In Her Passage, But Time Is Deaf To Every Plea And Rushes On. Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residue Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words: 'too Late...'

We May Win A Battle, But If In Doing So We Have Planted Thousands Of Seeds Of Hatred And Fear..the War Is Not Over- Only The Present Conflict Has Ceased. There Will Be No Peace As Long As We React To Violence With Violence.

It Was Argued That The Negro Was Inferior By Nature Because Of Noah's Curse Upon The Children Of Ham.... The Greatest Blasphemy Of The Whole Ugly Process Was That The White Man Ended Up Making God His Partner In The Exploitation Of The Negro.

Keep Feeling The Need For Being First. But I Want You To Be The First In Love. I Want You To Be The First In Moral Excellence. I Want You To Be The First In Generosity.

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

Not Everybody Can Be Famous But Everybody Can Be Great, Because Greatness Is Determined By Service.

Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

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.

We Need To Recapture The Gospel Glow Of The Early Christians Who Were Nonconformists In The Truest Sense Of The Word . . . Their Powerful Gospel Put An End To Such Barbaric Evils As Infanticide And Bloody Gladiatorial Contests. Finally, They Captured The Roman Empire For Jesus Christ.

White Man And Black Man, Jew And Gentile, Protestant And Catholic, Will Be Able To Hold Hands And Sing In The Words Of The Ancient Negro Spiritual, "free At Last, Free At Last. Thank God Almighty! We Are Free At Last!"

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.

You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace

A Final Victory Is An Accumulation Of Many Short-term Encounters. To Lightly Dismiss A Success Because It Does Not Usher In A Complete Order Of Justice Is To Fail To Comprehend The Process Of Achieving Full Victory.

A Productive And Happy Life Is Not Something You Find; It Is Something You Make.

There Is No Truth To The Myth That Negroes Depreciate Property. The Fact Is That Most Negroes Are Kept Out Of Residential Neighborhoods So Long That When One Of Us Is Finally Sold A Home, It's Already Depreciated.

The Time Has Come For America To Hear The Truth About This Tragic War. In International Conflicts, The Truth Is Hard To Come By Because Most Nations Are Deceived About Themselves. Rationalizations And The Incessant Search For Scapegoats Are The Psychological Cataracts That Blind Us To Our Sins. But The Day Has Passed For Superficial Patriotism. He Who Lives With Untruth Lives In Spiritual Slavery.

It's Just As Evil To Kill Vietnamese As It Is To Kill Americans.

Injustice Anywhere Threatens Justice Everywhere.

Injustice Anywhere

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

And Violence Is Impractical, Because The Old Eye For An Eye Philosophy Ends Up Leaving Everybody Blind .. It Is Immoral Because It Is A Descending Spiral Ending In Destruction For Everybody. Means And Ends Are Inseparable. The Means Represent The Ideal In The Making; In The Long Run Of History Destructive Means Cannot Bring About Constructive Ends.

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

To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

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.

Nothing In The World Is More Dangerous Than Sincere Ignorance And Conscientious Stupidity.

And You Know, It's Possible That The Priest And The Levite Looked Over That Man On The Ground And Wondered If The Robbers Were Still Around. Or It's Possible That They Felt That The Man On The Ground Was Merely Faking. And He Was Acting Like He Had Been Robbed And Hurt, In Order To Seize Them Over There, Lure Them There For Quick And Easy Seizure. And So The First Question That The Levite Asked Was, "if I Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Me?" But Then The Good Samaritan Came By. And He Reversed The Question: "if I Do Not Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Him?

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

...we Must Realize That A Vast Majority Of Believers Are Still Searching And Will Continue To Search For The Being Who Is The "source Of Human Good." Those Who Seek With Clear Heads And Sincere Hearts Will In Some Measure Find. Of Course The True Seeker Will Realize That There Is No One Way To Find God. To Be Sure, There Are Many Possible Ways Of Finding God.

We Still Have A Choice Today: Nonviolence Coesistence Or Violent Coannihilation.

If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable.

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.

Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

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

A Genuine Leader Is Not A Searcher For Consensus But A Molder Of Consensus.

We Must Recognize That We Can't Solve Our Problems Now Until There Is A Radical Redistribution Of Economic And Political Power.... A Radical Restructuring Of The Architecture Of American Society.

Many White Americans Of Good Will Have Never Connected Bigotry With Economic Exploitation. They Have Deplored Prejudice But Tolerated Or Ignored Economic Injustice.

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

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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Lara Flynn Boyle

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