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

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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We Should Never Forget

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

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The Limitation Of Riots, Moral Questions Aside, Is That They Cannot Win And Their Participants Know It. Hence, Rioting Is Not Revolutionary But Reactionary Because It Invites Defeat. It Involves An Emotional Catharsis, But It Must Be Followed By A Sense Of Futility.

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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.

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We Must Learn That Passively To Accept An Unjust System Is To Cooperate With That System, And Thereby To Become A Participant In Its Evil.

There Is Something In The Soul That Cries Out For Freedom.

Make A Career Of Humanity. Commit Yourself To The Struggle For Equal Rights.

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Unwavering Faith

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Let Us Be Those Creative Dissenters Who Will Call Our Beloved Nation To A Higher Destiny. To A New Plateau Of Compassion, To A More Noble Expression Of Humanness.

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Without Love, Benevolence Becomes Egotism.

Unfortunately, Most Of The Major Denominations Still Practice Segregation In Local Churches, Hospitals, Schools, And Other Church Institutions. It Is Appalling That The Most Segregated Hour Of Christian America Is Eleven O'clock On Sunday Morning, The Same Hour When Many Are Standing To Sing: "in Christ There Is No East Nor West.

Without Love, There Is No Reason To Know Anyone, For Love Will In The End Connect Us To Our Neighbors, Our Children And Our Hearts.

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We Have A Great Dream. It Started Way Back In 1776, And God Grant That America Will Be True To Her Dream.

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

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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.

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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.

I Will Always Remember My Delight When Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - An Unlettered Woman Of Unusual Intelligence - Told How An Operator Demanded That She Get Off The Bus After Paying Her Fare And Board It Again By The Back Door, And Then Drove Away Before She Could Get There. She Turned To Judge Carter And Said: "when They Count The Money, They Do Not Know Negro Money From White Money.

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. Far From Being The Pious Injunction Of A Utopian Dreamer, Love Is An Absolute Necessity For The Survival Of Our Civilization. To Return Hate For Hate Does Nothing But Intensify The Existence Of Evil In The Universe. Someone Must Have Sense Enough And Religion Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate And Evil, And This Can Only Be Done Through Love.

I'm Concerned About A Better World. I'm Concerned About Justice; I'm Concerned About Brotherhood; I'm Concerned About Truth. And When One Is Concerned About That, He Can Never Advocate Violence. For Through Violence You May Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder. Through Violence You May Murder A Liar, But You Can't Establish Truth. Through Violence You May Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate Through Violence. Darkness Cannot Put Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That.

Violence Brings Only Temporary Victories; Violence, By Creating Many More Social Problems Than It Solves, Never Brings Permanent Peace.

As Long As There Is Poverty In The World I Can Never Be Rich, Even If I Have A Billion Dollars. As Long As Diseases Are Rampant And Millions Of People In This World Cannot Expect To Live More Than Twenty-eight Or Thirty Years, I Can Never Be Totally Healthy Even If I Just Got A Good Checkup At Mayo Clinic. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. This Is The Way Our World Is Made. No Individual Or Nation Can Stand Out Boasting Of Being Independent. We Are Interdependent.

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.

Forgiveness Does Not Mean Ignoring What Has Been Done Or Putting A False Label On An Evil Act. It Means, Rather, That The Evil Act No Longer Remains As A Barrier To The Relationship. Forgiveness Is A Catalyst Creating The Atmosphere Necessary For A Fresh Start And A New Beginning.

Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of War But The Presence Of Justice, Of Law, Of Order —in Short, Of Government.

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

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.

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

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.

I Think There Can Be A Collective Leadership. Maybe Some Symbolize The Struggle [for Human's Rights] A Little More Than Others, But I Think It's Absolutely Necessary For The Leadership To Be United In Order To Make The Revolution Effective.

It Does Not Matter How Long You Live, But How Well You Do It.

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

Law And Order Exist For The Purpose Of Establishing Justice And When They Fail In This Purpose They Become The Dangerously Structured Dams That Block The Flow Of Social Progress.

Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties, And If You Think For A Moment, You Will Realize That They Take The Hardest Realities Of Life And Put Them Into Music, Only To Come Out With Some New Hope Or Sense Of Triumph.

I Had A Very Depressing Response Because I Realized That These Were My Own People, These Were Negroes Throwing Eggs At Me. I'm Concerned About The Fact That Maybe All Of Us Have Contributed To This By Not Working Harder To Get Rid Of The Conditions, The Poverty, The Social Isolation, And All Of The Conditions That Cause Individuals To Respond Like This.

No One Is Free Until We Are All Free.

The Quality, Not The Longevity, Of One's Life Is What Is Important.

We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now.

Breaking Silence

Our Goal Is To Create A Beloved Community," Said Dr. King, "and This Will Require A Qualitative Change In Our Souls As Well As A Quantitative Change In Our Lives.

Beloved Community

True Compassion Is More Than Throwing A Coin To A Beggar. It Demands Of Our Humanity That If We Live In A Society That Produces Beggars, We Are Morally Commanded To Restructure That Society.

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

Love Is A Usually Force Able Of Transforming An Rivalry Into Friend.

Rioting Is Not Revolutionary.

I Have A Dream Today!

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.

If The Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. Because The Goal Of America Is Freedom, Abused And Scorned Tho' We May Be, Our Destiny Is Tied Up With America's Destiny.

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

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.

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 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".

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy... In Fact, Violence Merely Increases Hate. So It Goes. Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

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

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

African American

The Problem Of Racism, The Problem Of Economic Exploitation, And The Problem Of War Are All Tied Together. These Are The Triple Evils That Are Interrelated.

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.

Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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.

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.

Ordinarily, A Person Leaving A Courtroom With A Conviction Behind Him Would Wear A Somber Face. But I Left With A Smile. I Knew That I Was A Convicted Criminal, But I Was Proud Of My Crime.

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

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

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

Human Progress Never Rolls In On The Wheels Of Inevitability; It Comes Through The Tireless Efforts And The Persistent Work Of Dedicated Individuals Who Are Willing To Be Co-workers With God And Without This Hard Work Time Itself Becomes An Ally Of The Primitive Forces Of Social Stagnation.

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

On Some Positions, Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Expedient? And Then Expedience Comes Along And Asks The Question, Is It Politic? Vanity Asks The Question, Is It Popular? Conscience Asks The Question, Is It Right? 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.

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

Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere. We Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny.

I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable.

The Great Majority Of Americans Are Suspended Between These Opposing Attitudes. They Are Uneasy With Injustice But Unwilling Yet To Pay A Significant Price To Eradicate It.

I Also Came To See That Liberalism's Superficial Optimism Concerning Human Nature Caused It To Overlook The Fact That Reason Is Darkened By Sin. The More I Thought About Human Nature The More I Saw How Our Tragic Inclination For Sin Causes Us To Use Our Minds To Rationalize Our Actions. Liberalism Failed To See That Reason By Itself Is Little More Than An Instrument To Justify Man's Defensive Ways Of Thinking. Reason, Devoid Of The Purifying Power Of Faith, Can Never Free Itself From Distortions And Rationalizations.

Violence Never Brings Permanent Peace. It Solves No Social Problem: It Merely Creates New And More Complicated Ones.

There Is Within Human Nature An Amazing Potential For Goodness.

Nonviolent Action, The Negro Saw, Was The Way To Supplement, Not Replace, The Progress Of Change. It Was The Way To Divest Himself Of Passivity Without Arraying Himself In Vindictive Force.

Somebody Must Have Sense Enough And Morality Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate And The Chain Of Evil In The Universe. And You Do That By Love

Again And Again We Must Rise To The Majestic Heights Of Meeting Physical Force With Soul Force.

March On Washington

Racial Understanding Is Not Something We Find, But Something That We Must Create. Through Education, We Seek To Change Attitudes.

Be Concerned About Your Brother...eithe R We Go Up Together, Or We Go Down Together.

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.

Injustice Anywhere Threatens Justice Everywhere.

Injustice Anywhere

One Of The Great Tragedies Of Life Is That Men Seldom Bridge The Gulf Between Practice And Profession, Between Doing And Saying.

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 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

There Are Some Things Concerning Which We Must Always Be Maladjusted If We Are To Be People Of Good Will. We Must Never Adjust Ourselves To Racial Segregation. We Must Never Adjust Ourselves To Religious Bigotry. We Must Never Adjust Ourselves To Economic Conditions That Take Necessities From The Many To Give Luxuries To The Few.

You're As Good As Anybody.

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

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.

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

Jesus Christ Was An Extremist For Love, Truth And Goodness.

There Is A More Excellent Way, Of Love And Nonviolent Protest.

Riots Are The Voices Of The Unheard.

Injustice And Corruption Will Never Be Transformed By Keeping Them Hidden, But Only By Bringing Them Out Into The Light And Confronting Them With The Power Of Love.

The Function Of Education Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. Intelligence Plus Character - That Is The Goal Of True Education.

We Must Come To See That The End We Seek Is A Society At Peace With Itself, A Society That Can Live With Its Conscience.

Communism Will Never Be Defeated By Atomic Bombs. Our Greatest Defense Against Communism Is To Take Offensive Action On Behalf Of Justice And Righteousness. We Must Seek To Remove Conditions Of Poverty, Injustice, And Racial Discrimination.

It All Boils Down To The Fact That We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Become Satisfied With Unattained Goals. We Must Always Maintain A Kind Of Divine Discontent.

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John Maynard Keynes

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