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We Are Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. Procrastination Is Still The Thief Of Time. Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residues Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words ‘too Late’.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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We Are Faced With

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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We Are Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. Procrastination Is Still The Thief Of Time. Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residues Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words ‘too Late’.

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Procrastination

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

I Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems. And I'm Going To Talk About It Everywhere I Go. I Know It Isn't Popular To Talk About It In Some Circles Today. I'm Not Talking About Emotional Bosh When I Talk About Love, I'm Talking About A Strong, Demanding Love.

I Think The Inconveniences Of A Segregated Education Are Much Greater Than The Inconveniences Of Busing Students So That They Can Get An Integrated Quality Education.

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.

Capitalism Started Out With A Noble And High Motive, But Like Most Human Systems It Fell Victim To The Very Thing It Was Revolting Against.

One Who Breaks An Unjust Law Must Do So Openly, Lovingly, And With A Willingness To Accept The Penalty.

[w]e Are The Heirs Of A Past Of Rope, Fire, And Murder. I For One Am Not Ashamed Of This Past. My Shame Is For Those Who Became So Inhuman That They Could Inflict This Torture Upon Us.

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.

The Evils Of Capitalism Are As Real As The Evils Of Militarism And Evils Of Racism.

Many People In Harlem Never Go Out Of Harlem. I Mean They'd Never Even Been Downtown. And You Can See How This Bitterness Can Accumulate. Here You See People Crowded And Hovered Up In Ghettos And Slums With No Hope.they See No Way Out.

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

There Is Within Human Nature An Amazing Potential For Goodness.

These Are The Times For Real Choices And Not False Ones. We Are At The Moment When Our Lives Must Be Placed On The Line If Our Nation Is To Survive Its Own Folly. Every Man Of Humane Convictions Must Decide On The Protest That Best Suits His Convictions, But We Must All Protest.

We Must Work Passionately And Unrelentingly For The Goal Of Freedom, But We Must Be Sure That Our Hands Are Clean In The Struggle. We Must Never Struggle With Falsehood, Hate, Or Malice. We Must Never Become Bitter.

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

History Will Have To Recordthat The Greatest Tragedy Of This Period Of Social Transitionwas Not The Vitriolic Words And The Violent Actions Of The Bad Peoplebut The Appalling Silence And Indifference Of The Good.our Generation Will Have To Repent Notonly For The Words And Actions Of The Children Of Darknessbut Also For The Fears And Apathy Of Thechildren Of Light.

A Man Does Not Measure Its Height In Moments Of Comfort, But In Terms Of Change And Controversy

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

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.

School Takes 13 Years, Because That Is How Long It Takes To Break A Child's Spirit.

By Nonviolent Resistance, The Negro Can Also Enlist All Men Of Good Will In His Struggle For Equality.

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.

A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

There Is Nothing New About Poverty. What Is New, However, Is That We Have The Resources To Get Rid Of It.

The Early Christians Rejoiced When They Were Deemed Worthy To Suffer For What They Believed. In Those Days The Church Was Not Merely A Thermometer That Recorded The Ideas And Principles O Popular Opinion; It Was A Thermostat That Transformed The Mores Of Society.

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

Non-violent Direct Action Seeks To Create Such A Crisis And Establish Such Creative Tension That A Community That Has Constantly Refused To Negotiate Is Forced To Confront The Issue. It Seeks So To Dramatize The Issue That It Can No Longer Be Ignored... I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension. I Have Earnestly Worked And Preached Against Violent Tension, And There Is A Type Of Constructive Tension That Is Necessary For Growth.

We Cannot Walk Alone.

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.

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

What Good Does It Do To Sit At The Counter When You Cannot Afford A Hamburger?

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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.

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The Christian Faith Makes It Possible For Us Nobly To Accept That Which Cannot Be Changed, And To Meet Disappointments And Sorrow With An Inner Poise, And To Absorb The Most Intense Pain Without Abandoning Our Sense Of Hope.

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

All Life Is Interrelated. The Agony Of The Poor Impoverishes The Rich; The Betterment Of The Poor Enriches The Rich. We Are Inevitably Our Brother's Keeper Because We Are Our Brother's Brother. Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

Forgiveness Is Not An Occasional Act, It Is A Constant Attitude.

Wars Are Poor Chisels For Carving Out Peaceful Tomorrows.

I Would Suffer All The Humiliation, All The Torture, The Absolute Ostracism And Even Death, To Prevent Violence

But I Know, Somehow, That Only When It Is Dark Enough, Can You See The Stars.

There Is A Power In Love That Our World Has Not Discovered Yet. Jesus Discovered It Centuries Ago. Mahatma Gandhi Of India Discovered It A Few Years Ago, But Most Men And Most Women Never Discover It. For They Believe In Hitting For Hitting; They Believe In An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth; They Believe In Hating For Hating; But Jesus Comes To Us And Says, 'this Isn't The Way.'

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

In The Final Analysis The Weakness Of Black Power Is Its Failure To See That The Black Man Needs The White Man And The White Man Needs The Black Man.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It. Hatred Confuses Life; Love Harmonizes It. Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illuminates It.

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

Good And Just Society Is Neither The Thesis Of Capitalism Nor The Antithesis Of Communism, But A Socially Conscious Democracy Which Reconciles The Truths Of Individualism And Collectivism.

At Times, Life Is Hard, As Hard As Crucible Steel. It Has Its Bleak And Painful Moments. Like The Ever Flowing Water Of A River, Life Has Its Moments Of Drought And Its Moments Of Flood. Like The Ever-changin Cycle Of The Seasons, Life Has The Soothing Warmth Of The Summers And The Piercing Chill Of Its Winters. But Through It All, God Walks With Us. Never Forget That God Is Able To Lift You From The Fatigue Of Despair To The Buoyancy Of Hope, And Transform Dark And Desolate Valleys Into Sunlit Paths Of Inner Peace.

There Is Such A Thing As Being Too Late. This Is No Time For Apathy Or Complacency. This Is A Time For Vigorous And Positive Action.

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

In The End, We Will Remember Not The Words Of Our Enemies But The Silence Of Our Friends.

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There Is A Type Of Constructive Nonviolent Tension That Is Necessary For Growth

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The Majority Of The Negroes Who Took Part In The Year-long Boycott Of Montgomery's Buses Were Poor And Untutored; But They Understood The Essence Of The Montgomery Movement; One Elderly Woman Summed It Up For The Rest. When Asked After Several Weeks Of Walking Whether She Was Tired, She Answered: "my Feet Is Tired, But My Soul Is At Rest.

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The Major Problem Of Life Is Learning How To Handle The Costly Interruptions. The Door That Slams Shut, The Plan That Got Sidetracked, The Marriage That Failed. Or That Lovely Poem That Didn't Get Written Because Someone Knocked On The Door.

Science Investigates Religion Interprets. Science Gives Man Knowledge Which Is Power Religion Gives Man Wisdom Which Is Control.

It May Be True That The Law Cannot Make A Man Love Me, But It Can Keep Him From Lynching Me, And I Think That's Pretty Important.

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

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Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

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

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

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.

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

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The Darkness Of Racial Injustice Will Be Dispelled Only By The Light Of Forgiving Love. For More That Three Centuries American Negroes Have Been Frustrated By Day And Bewilderment By Night By Unbearable Injustice, And Burdened With The Ugly Weight Of Discrimination. Forced To Live With These Shameful Conditions, We Are Tempted To Become Bitter And Retaliate With A Corresponding Hate. But If This Happens, The New Order We Seek Will Be Little More Than A Duplicate Of The Old Order. We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

Many People Fear Nothing More Terribly Than To Take A Position Which Stands Out Sharply And Clearly From The Prevailing Opinion. The Tendency Of Most Is To Adopt A View That Is So Ambiguous That It Will Include Everything And So Popular That It Will Include Everybody. Not A Few Men Who Cherish Lofty And Noble Ideals Hide Them Under A Bushel For Fear Of Being Called Different.

A Woman Can Have A Smile, And A Woman Can Have A Large Backside, But I Have Been To The Mountain And I Am Here To Tell You That When A Woman Has Both Of Those Things She Is Not To Be Trusted.

Whatever Effects One Directly, Effects All Indirectly.

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

Alienation Is A Form Of Living Death. It Is The Acid Of Despair That Dissolves Society.

Riots Are The Voices Of The Unheard.

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If You Want To Be Important-wonderful. If You Want To Be Recognized-wonderful. If You Want To Be Great-wonderful. But Recognize That He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be Your Servant. That's A New Definition Of Greatness.

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.

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

As Television Beamed The Image Of This Extraordinary Gathering Across The Border Oceans, Everyone Who Believed In Man's Capacity To Better Himself Had A Moment Of Inspiration And Confidence In The Future Of The Human Race.

It All Boils Down To This: That All Life Is Interrelated.

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

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.

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

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

Injustice Anywhere Threatens Justice Everywhere.

Injustice Anywhere

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.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Bitterness.

I Am What I Am Because Of Who We All Are.

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

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.

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.

Being A Negro In America Means Trying To Smile When You Want To Cry. It Means Trying To Hold On To Physical Life Amid Psychological Death. It Means The Pain Of Watching Your Children Grow Up With Clouds Of Inferiority In Their Mental Skies. It Means Having Their Legs Off, And Then Being Condemned For Being A Cripple.

Nonviolence Means Avoiding Not Only External Physical Violence But Also Internal Violence Of Spirit. You Not Only Refuse To Shoot A Man, But You Refuse To Hate Him.

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

We Aren't Going To Have Peace On Earth Until We Recognize The Basic Fact Of The Interrelated Structure Of All Reality.

Eating Breakfast

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

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.

Hate Is Just As Injurious To The Hater As It Is To The Hated. Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity. Many Of Our Inner Conflicts Are Rooted In Hate. This Is Why The Psychiatrists Say, "love Or Perish." Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear.

If A Man Is Called To Be A Street Sweeper, He Should Sweep Streets Even As A Michaelangelo Painted, Or Beethoven Composed Music Or Shakespeare Wrote Poetry. He Should Sweep Streets So Well That All The Hosts Of Heaven And Earth Will Pause To Say, 'here Lived A Great Street Sweeper Who Did His Job Well.

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.

The Poor Never Get The Job Done They Are Sleepy.

You Can't Talk About Solving The Economic Problem Of The Negro Without Talking About Billions Of Dollars. You Can't Talk About Ending The Slums Without First Saying Profit Must Be Taken Out Of The Slums. You're Really Tampering And Getting On Dangerous Ground Because You Are Messing With Folk Then. You Are Messing With Captains Of Industry. Now This Means That We Are Treading In Difficult Water, Because It Really Means That We Are Saying That Something Is Wrong With Capitalism.

True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar; It Comes To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring.

Man Is Man Because He Is Free To Operate Within The Framework Of His Destiny. He Is Free To Deliberate, To Make Decisions, And To Choose Between Alternatives.

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.

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

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

It's Very Easy For One Talking About Violence And Hatred For The White Man To Appeal To [negro From Ghetto]. I Have Never Thought Of This, But I Think This Is Quite True, That If, Even If You Talk To Them About Nonviolence From A Tactical Point Of View, They Can't Quite See It Because They Don't Even Know They're Outnumbered.

He (jesus) Knew That The Old Eye-for-eye Philosophy Would Leave Everyone Blind. He Did Not Seek To Overcome Evil With Evil. He Overcame Evil With Good. Although Crucified By Hate, He Responded With Aggressive Love.

This Will Be The Day When We Shall Bring Into Full Realization The Dream Of American Democracy - A Dream Yet Unfulfilled. A Dream Of Equality Of Opportunity, Of Privilege And Property Widely Distributed; A Dream Of A Land Where Men Will Not Take Necessities From The Many To Give Luxuries To The Few.

The Negro Is The Child Of Two Cultures - Africa And America. The Problem Is That In The Search For Wholeness All Too Many Negroes Seek To Embrace Only One Side Of Their Natures.

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.

I Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Of Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor As Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube.

Slaves Do Not Always Welcome Their Deliverers. They Become Accustomed To Being Slaves. They Would Rather Gear Those Ills They Have

The Conservatives Who Say, "let Us Not Move So Fast," And The Extremists Who Say, "let Us Go Out And Whip The World ," Would Tell You That They Are As Far Apart As The Poles. But There Is A Striking Parallel: They Accomplish Nothing; For They Do Not Reach The People Who Have A Crying Need To Be Free.

Accomplish Nothing

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

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

A Time Comes When Silence Is 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.

We Must Have The Faith That Things Will Work Out Somehow, That God Will Make A Way For Us When There Seems No Way.

You Know, My Friends, There Comes A Time When People Get Tired Of Being Trampled Over By The Iron Feet Of Oppression.

A Second Way That Oppressed People Sometimes Deal With Oppression Is To Resort To Physical Violence And Corroding Hatred.

Almost Always, The Creative Dedicated Minority Has Made The World Better.

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.

History Will Have To Record That The Greatest Tragedy Of This Period Of Social Transition Was Not The Strident Clamor Of The Bad People, But The Appalling Silence Of The Good People. Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere. We Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Directly, Affects All Indirectly. 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.

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.

Let Us Rise Up Tonight With A Greater Readiness. Let Us Stand With A Greater Determination. And Let Us Move On In These Powerful Days, These Days Of Challenge To Make America What It Ought To Be. We Have An Opportunity To Make America A Better Nation.

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.

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.

Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

I Have A Dream, One Dream, Keep Dreaming. Dream Of Freedom, Justice Dreaming, Dreaming Of Equality And Hopefully No Longer Required To Dream Them

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

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

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

I Never Cease To Wonder At The Amazing Presumption Of Much Of White Society, Assuming That They Have The Right To Bargain With The Negro For His Freedom.

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.

By...our Readiness To Allow Arms To Be Purchased At Will And Fired At Whim; By Allowing Our Movie And Television Screens To Teach Our Children That The Hero Is One Who Masters The Art Of Shooting And The Technique Of Killing...we Have Created An Atmosphere In Which Violence And Hatred Have Become Popular Pastimes.

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

Black And White

Darkness Is Only Driven Out With Light, Not More Darkness.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

Loving Your Enemies

A Lie Cannot Live.

The Church Must Be The Critic And Guide Of The State, And Never Its Tool.

Our Destiny Is Tied Up With The Destiny Of America.

With All Of Its False Assumptions And Evil Methods, Communism Grew As A Protest Against The Hardships Of The Underprivileged. Communism In Theory Emphasized A Classless Society, And A Concern For Social Justice, Though The World Knows From Sad Experience That In Practice It Created New Classes And A New Lexicon Of Injustice.

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.

‎it Is A Cruel Injustice To Tell A Bootless Man To Pull Himself Up By His Bootstraps.

I Came To The Conclusion That There Is An Existential Moment In Your Life When You Must Decide To Speak For Yourself; Nobody Else Can Speak For You.

I Just Want To Be There In Love And In Justice And In Truth And In Commitment To Others, So That We Can Make Of This Old World A New World.

Violence Ends Up Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

It Is Incontestable And Deplorable That Negroes Have Committed Crimes; But They Are Derivative Crimes. They Are Born Of The Greater Crimes Of The White Society.

In This World Is A God Whose Matchless Strength Is A Fit Contrast To The Sordid Weakness Of Man.

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

To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It.

Everybody Can Be Great...because Anybody Can Serve. You Don't Have To Have A College Degree To Serve. You Don't Have To Make Your Subject And Verb Agree To Serve. You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace. A Soul Generated By Love.

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.

There Is No Deficit In Human Resources; The Deficit Is In Human Will.

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

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

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

Through Violence, You May Murder The Hater, But You Do Not Murder The Hate.

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

Segregation...not Only Harms One Physically But Injures One Spiritually...it Scars The Soul...it Is A System Which Forever Stares The Segregated In The Face, Saying 'you Are Less Than...''you Are Not Equal To...'

The Potential Beauty Of Human Life Is Constantly Made Ugly By Man's Ever-recurring Song Of Retaliation.

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

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

To Have Serpentlike Qualities Devoid Of Dovelike Qualities Is To Be Passionless, Mean, And Selfish.

Is Your Heart Right? If Your Heart Isn't Right, Fix It Up Today.

If You Will Protest Courageously, And Yet With Dignity And Christian Love, When The History Books Are Written In Future Generations, The Historians Will Have To Pause And Say, "there Lived A Great People-a Black People-who Injected New Meaning And Dignity Into The Veins Of Civilization.

For Years Now I Have Heard The Word "wait." It Rings In The Ear Of Every Negro With A Piercing Familiarity. This "wait" Has Almost Always Meant "never."

We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society.

Breaking Silence

A Man Can't Ride Your Back Unless It's Bent.

African American

Truth Is Found Neither In Marxism Nor In Traditional Capitalism. Each Represents A Partial Truth. Historically Capitalism Failed To See The Truth In Collective Enterprise, And Marxism Failed To See The Truth In Individual Enterprise. Nineteenth Century Capitalism Failed To See That Life Is Social And Marxism Failed And Still Fails To See That Life Is Individual And Personal. The Kingdom Of God Is Neither The Thesis Of Individual Enterprise Nor The Antithesis Of Collective Enterprise, But A Synthesis Which Reconciles The Truths Of Both.

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

In Spite Of Its Glowing Talk About The Welfare Of The Masses, Communism's Methods And Philosophy Strip Man Of His Dignity And Worth, Leaving Him As Little More Than A Depersonalized Cog In The Ever-turning Wheel Of The State.

History Has Thrust Something Upon Me From Which I Cannot Turn Away.

Truth Crushed To Earth Will Rise Again.

In The Final Analysis, Means And Ends Must Cohere Because The End Is Preexistent In The Means, And, Ultimately, Destructive Means Cannot Bring About Constructive Ends.

The Modern Choice Is Between Non-violence Or Non-existence.

I May Be Crucified For My Beliefs And, If I Am, You Can Say, "he Died To Make Men Free.

We Shall Match Your Capacity To Inflict Suffering By Our Capacity To Endure Suffering. We Will Meet Your Physical Force With Soul Force. 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.

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!"

Through Nonviolent Resistance The Negro Will Be Able To Rise To The Noble Height Of Opposing The Unjust System While Loving The Perpetrators Of The System.

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

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

What Are You Doing For Others?

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.

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

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

If I Lived In China Or Even Russia, Or Any Totalitarian Country, Maybe I Could Understand Some Of These Illegal Injunctions. ... But Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Assembly. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Speech. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of The Press. Somewhere I Read That The Greatness Of America Is The Right To Protest For Right.

Curtailment Of Free Speech Is Rationalized On Grounds That A More Compelling American Tradition Forbids Criticism Of The Government When The Nation Is At War... Nothing Can Be More Destructive Of Our Fundamental Democratic Traditions Than The Vicious Effort To Silence Dissenters.

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

A Religion True To Its Nature Must Also Be Concerned About Man's Social Conditions....a Ny Religion That Professes To Be Concerned With The Souls Of Men And Is Not Concerned With The Slums That Damn Them, The Economic Conditions That Strangle Them, And The Social Conditions That Cripple Them Is A Dry-as-dust Religion.

Gandhi Was Inevitable. If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable. He Lived, Thought And Acted, Inspired By The Vision Of Humanity Evolving Toward A World Of Peace And Harmony. We May Ignore Gandhi At Our Own Risk.

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