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Violence Is Immoral Because It Thrives On Hatred Rather Than Love. It Destroys Community And Makes Brotherhood Impossible. It Leaves Society In Monologue Rather Than Dialogue. Violence Ends By Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Violence Is Immoral Because

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Violence Is Immoral Because It Thrives On Hatred Rather Than Love. It Destroys Community And Makes Brotherhood Impossible. It Leaves Society In Monologue Rather Than Dialogue. Violence Ends By Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

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Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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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.

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.

When People Criticize Zionists, They Mean Jews. You Are Talking Anti-semitism.

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I Have A Dream... I Have A Dream Today... And If America Is To Be A Great Nation This Must Become True.

When We Rise In The Morning... At The Table We Drink Coffee Which Is Provided To Us By A South American, Or Tea By A Chinese, Or Cocoa By A West African; Before We Leave For Our Jobs We Are Already Beholden To More Than Half The World.

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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.

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Thought Provoking

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Beloved Community

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Pity May Represent Little More Than The Impersonal Concern Which Prompts The Mailing Of A Check, But True Sympathy Is The Personal Concern Which Demands The Giving Of One's Soul.

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.

Life's Piano Can Only Produce Melodies Of Brotherhood (and Sisterhood) When It Is Recognized That The Black Keys Are As Basic, Necessary And Beautiful As The White Keys.

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A Right Delayed Is A Right Denied.

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Procrastination

Violence Often Brings About Momentary Results.

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The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

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Your Self-sacrificin G Devotion To Your Purpose In Life And Your Unwavering Faith Will Carry You Through Times Of Difficulty.

Unwavering Faith

Every Man Of Humane Convictions Must Decide On The Protest That Best Suits His Convictions, But We Must All Protest.

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In A Sense We've Come To Our Nation's Capital To Cash A Check. When The Architects Of Our Republic Wrote The Magnificent Words Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence, They Were Signing A Promissory Note To Which Every American Was To Fall Heir. This Note Was A Promise That All Men - Yes, Black Men As Well As White Men - Would Be Guaranteed The Unalienable Rights Of Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness... America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

Pursuit Of Happiness

What Are You Doing For Others?

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.

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

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Even If Our Motives Are Presently Misunderstood. We Will Reach The Goal Of Freedom In Birmingham And All Over The Nation, Because The Goal Of America Is Freedom.

War Is A Poor Chisel To Carve Out Tomorrow.

In Christ There Is No East Nor West.

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

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Economic Inequality

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

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There Is Something In This Universe That Justifies The Biblical Writer In Saying, "you Shall Reap What You Sow." This Is A Law-abiding Universe. This Is A Moral Universe. It Hinges On Moral Foundations. If We Are To Make Of This A Better World, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover That Precious Value That We've Left Behind.

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There Comes A Time When The Cup Of Endurance Runs Over, And Men Are No Longer Willing To Be Plunged Into The Abyss Of Despair.

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

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.

The Nation Is Sick; Trouble Is In The Land, Confusion All Around...but I Know, Somehow, That Only When It Is Dark Enough Can You See The Stars. And I See God Working In This Period Of The Twentieth Century. Something Is Happening In Our World. The Masses Of People Are Rising Up. And Wherever They Are Assembled Today, Whether They Are In Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; Or Memphis, Tennessee, The Cry Is Always The Same: 'we Want To Be Free.'

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

We Are Now Faced With The Fact That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now. In This Unfolding Conundrum Of Life And History, There "is" Such A Thing As Being Too Late. This Is No Time For Apathy Or Complacency. This Is A Time For Vigorous And Postive Action.

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

In The Process Of Gaining Our Rightful Place, We Must Not Be Guilty Of Wrongful Deeds. Let Us Not Seek To Satisfy Our Thirst For Freedom By Drinking From The Cup Of Bitterness And Hatred. We Must Forever Conduct Our Struggle On The High Plane Of Dignity And Discipline.

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.

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

I Think A Revolution Can Survive Without Single Centralized Leadership.

When Evil Men Plot, Good Men Must Plan. When Evil Men Burn And Bomb, Good Men Must Build And Bind. When Evil Men Shout Ugly Words Of Hatred, Good Men Must Commit Themselves To The Glories Of Love.

Be True To What You Said On Paper.

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.

The Greatness Of Our God Lies In The Fact That [he] Is Both Tough Minded And Tender Hearted.

Unity Has Never Meant Uniformity.

We Must Remember That Intelligence Is Not Enough. Intelligence Plus Character-that Is The Goal Of True Education. The Complete Education Gives One Not Only Power Of Concentration, But Worthy Objectives Upon Which To Concentrate.

There Are Often Multiple Sources For Some Famous Statements By King; As A Professional Speaker And Minister He Used Some Significant Phrases With Only Slight Variation Many Times In His Essays, Books, And His Speeches To Different Audiences.

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater.

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.

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.

Hate Destroys The Hater.

There Is Nothing More Tragic In All The World Than To Know Right And Not To Do It.

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

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

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

I Agree With Dante, That The Hottest Places In Hell Are Reserved For Those Who In A Period Of Moral Crisis Maintain Their Neutrality. There Comes A Time When Silence Becomes Betrayal.

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.

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.

The Profit Motive, When It Is The Sole Basis Of An Economic System, Encourages A Cutthroat Competition And Selfish Ambition That Inspires Men To Be More Concerned About Making A Living Than Making A Life.

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.

Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars.

And So Even Though We Face The Difficulties Of Today And Tomorrow, I Still Have A Dream. It Is A Dream Deeply Rooted In The American Dream.

The Body Is God's Temple, But We Are To Worship God, Not The Temple.

I Choose To Identify With The Underprivileged, I Choose To Give My Life For The Hungry, I Choose To Give My Life For Those Who Have Been Left Out Of The Sunlight Of Opportunity . . . This Is The Way I'm Going. If It Means Suffering, I'm Going That Way. If It Means Dying For Them, I'm Going That Way, Because I Heard A Voice Saying Do Something For Others.

War Is The Greatest Plague That Can Afflict Mankind... Any Scourge Is Preferable To It.

Why Is The Church Always A Taillight Rather Than A Headlight?

Rioting Is Not Revolutionary.

Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity. Hate Destroys A Man's Sense Of Values And His Objectivity. It Causes Him To Describe The Beautiful As Ugly And The Ugly As Beautiful, And To Confuse The True With The False And The False With The True.

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

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

Occasionally In Life There Are Those Moments Of Unutterable Fulfillment Which Cannot Be Completely Explained By Those Symbols Called Words. Their Meanings Can Only Be Articulated By The Inaudible Language Of The Heart.

From My Christian Formation've Gotten My Ideals And Technique Gandhi Action

I Just Want To Do God's Will. And He's Allowed Me To Go To The Mountain. And I've Looked Over, And I've Seen The Promised Land! I May Not Get There With You, But I Want You To Know Tonight That We As A People Will Get To The Promised Land.

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

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.

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

Breaking Silence

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.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing.

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.

Great People Aren't Those Who Are Happy At Times Of Convienience And Content, But Of How They Are In Times Of Catastrophy And Controversy.

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.

The Problem With Hatred And Violence Is That They Intensity The Fears Of The White Majority, And Leave Them Less Ashamed Of Their Prejudices Toward Negroes.

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

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

We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That "justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied."

We Must Substitute Courage For Caution.

All Men Are Interdependent. Every Nation Is An Heir Of A Vast Treasury Of Ideas And Labor To Which Both The Living And The Dead Of All Nations Have Contributed. Whether We Realize It Or Not, Each Of Us Lives Eternally 'in The Red.' We Are Everlasting Debtors To Known And Unknown Men And Women.

Before The Pilgrims Landed At Plymouth, We Were Here. Before The Pen Of Jefferson Etched Across The Pages Of History The Majestic Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, We Were Here.

The Great Issue Of Life Is To Harness The Drum Major Instinct.

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.

The Day We See The Truth And Cease To Speak Is The Day We Begin To Die

We Must Learn That To Expect God To Do Everything While We Do Nothing Is Not Faith But Superstition.

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.

There Is Nothing In All The World Greater Than Freedom. It Is Worth Paying For; It Is Worth Going To Jail For. I Would Rather Be A Free Pauper Than A Rich Slave. I Would Rather Die In Abject Poverty With My Convictions Than Live In Inordinate Riches With The Lack Of Self Respect.

Now There Is A Final Reason I Think That Jesus Says, 'love Your Enemies.' It Is This: That Love Has Within It A Redemptive Power. And There Is A Power There That Eventually Transforms Individuals.

... The Right To Defend One's Home And One's Person When Attacked Has Been Guaranteed Through The Ages By Common Law.

Nonviolence Is The Most Potent Technique For Oppressed People. Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

When Evil Men Burn And Bomb, Good Men Must Build And Bind.

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

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

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. This Creative Force Is The Most Potent Instrument Available In Mankind's Quest For Peace And Security.

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.

Capitalism Is Always In Danger Of Inspiring Men To Be More Concerned About Making A Living Than Making A Life. 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 Humanity-thus Capitalism Can Lead To A Practical Materialism That Is As Pernicious As The Materialism Taught By Communism.

Whenever The Early Christians Entered A Town The Power Structure Got Disturbed And Immediately Sought To Convict Them For Being "disturbers Of The Peace" And "outside Agitators." But They Went On With The Conviction That They Were "a Colony Of Heaven," And Had To Obey God Rather Than Man. They Were Small In Number But Big In Commitment. They Were Too God-intoxicated To Be "astronomically Intimidated." They Brought An End To Such Ancient Evils As Infanticide And Gladiatorial Contest.

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.

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.

Something Should Remind Us Once More That The Great Things In This Universe Are Things That We Never See.

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

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age.

Agape Is Disinterested Love. . . . Agape Does Not Begin By Discriminating Between Worthy And Unworthy People, Or Any Qualities People Possess. It Begins By Loving Others For Their Sakes. . . . Therefore, Agape Makes No Distinction Between Friend And Enemy; It Is Directed Toward Both.

I Am Now Convinced That The Simplest Approach Will Prove To Be The Most Effective -- The Solution To Poverty Is To Abolish It Directly By A Now Widely Discussed Measure: The Guaranteed Income.

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.

Nothing Is So Much Needed As A Secure Family Life For A People Seeking To Rise Out Of Poverty And Backwardness.

Let Us Not Seek To Satisfy Our Thirst For Freedom By Drinking From The Cup Of Bitterness And Hatred.

There Are Two Types Of Laws: There Are Just Laws And There Are Unjust Laws... What Is The Difference Between The Two?...an Unjust Law Is A Man-made Code That Is Out Of Harmony With The Moral Law.

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