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When Our Days Become Dreary With Low Hovering Clouds Of Despair, And When Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, Let Us Remember That There Is A Creative Force In This Universe, Working To Pull Down The Gigantic Mountains Of Evil, A Power That Is Able To Make A Way Out Of No Way And Transform Dark Yesterdays Into Bright Tomorrows. Let Us Realize The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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When Our Days Become

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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When Our Days Become Dreary With Low Hovering Clouds Of Despair, And When Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, Let Us Remember That There Is A Creative Force In This Universe, Working To Pull Down The Gigantic Mountains Of Evil, A Power That Is Able To Make A Way Out Of No Way And Transform Dark Yesterdays Into Bright Tomorrows. Let Us Realize The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

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

There Is A Magnificent New Militancy Within The Negro Community All Across This Nation. And I Welcome This As A Marvelous Development. The Negro Of America Is Saying He's Determined To Be Free And He Is Militant Enough To Stand Up.

Set Yourself Earnestly To Discover What You Are Made To Do, And Then Give Yourself Passionately To The Doing Of It.

Black Power Is A Nihilistic Philosophy Born Out Of The Conviction That The Negro Can't Win... The View That American Society Is So Hopelessly Corrupt And Enmeshed In Evil That There Is No Possibility Of Salvation From Within.

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.

It Is Obvious Today That America Has Defaulted On This Promissory Note Insofar As Her Citizens Of Color Are Concerned. Instead Of Honoring This Sacred Obligation, America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

Each Of Us Is Something Of A Schizophrenic Personality, Tragically Divided Against Ourselves.

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

A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

It's Not Burn Baby Burn, But Learn, Baby, Learn, So That You Can Earn, Baby, Earn.

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.

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.

My Obligation Is To Do The Right Thing. The Rest Is In God's Hands.

Nonviolence Is A Powerful As Well As A Just Weapon. If You Confront A Man Who Has Long Been Cruelly Misusing You, And Say, "punish Me, If You Will; I Do Not Deserve It, But I Will Accept It, So That The World Will Know I Am Right And You Are Wrong," Then You Wield A Powerful And A Just Weapon. This Man, Your Oppressor, Is Automatically Morally Defeated, And If He Has Any Conscience, He Is Ashamed.

Change Does Not Roll In On The Wheels Of Inevitability, But Comes Through Continuous Struggle. And So We Must Straighten Our Backs And Work For Our Freedom. A Man Can't Ride You Unless Your Back Is Bent.

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

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

Unless You Have Found Something In Life To Live For That Is More Important To You Than Your Own Life, You Will Always Be A Slave. For All Another Man Needs To Do Is Threaten To Take Your Life To Get You To Do His Bidding.

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

Lightning Makes No Sound Until It Strikes.

The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

If We Are Going To Achieve A Real Equality, The U.s. Will Have To Adopt A Modified Form Of Socialism.

Human Progress Is Neither Automatic Nor Inevitable . . .

Be An Artist At Whatever You Do. Even If You Are A Street Sweeper, Be The Michelangelo Of Street Sweepers.

If I Knew That The World Ends Tomorrow, I, Even Today, Plant A Tree

Education Must Enable A Man To Become More Efficient, To Achieve With Increasing Facility The Legitimate Goals Of His Life.

A Nation Or Civilization That Continues To Produce Soft-minded Men Purchases Its Own Spiritual Death On The Installment Plan.

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.

The Strong Man Is The Man Who Can Stand Up For His Rights And Not Hit Back.

Hate Is Too Heavy A Burden To Bear.

Every Nation Must Now Develop An Overriding Loyalty To Mankind As A Whole In Order To Preserve The Best In Their Individual Societies.

The Universe Is Under The Control Of A Loving Purpose, And That In The Struggle For Righteousness Man Has Cosmic Companionship (angels). Behind The Harsh Appearance Of The World There Is A Benign Power.

America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

I Have A Dream Speech

My Soul Is Too Glad And Too Great To Be At Heart The Enemy Of Any Man

Our Scientific Power Has Outrun Our Spiritual Power. We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men. Our Hope For Creative Living Lies In Our Ability To Reestablish The Spiritual Needs Of Our Lives In Personal Character And Social Justice. Without This Spiritual And Moral Reawakening We Shall Destroy Ourselves In The Misuse Of Our Own Instruments.

I Question And Soul-search Constantly Into Myself To Be As Certain As I Can That I Am Fulfilling The True Meaning Of My Work, That I Am Maintaining My Sense Of Purpose, That I Am Holding Fast To My Ideals, That I Am Guiding My People In The Right Direction.

One Has Not Only A Legal But A Moral Responsibility To Obey Just Laws. Conversely, One Has A Moral Responsibility To Disobey Unjust Laws. I Would Agree With St. Augustine That ' An Unjust Law Is No Law At All.

I Am Not Unmindful That Some Of You Have Come Here Out Of Great Trials And Tribulations. Some Of You Have Come Fresh From Narrow Cells. Some Of You Have Come From Areas Where Your Quest For Freedom Left You Battered By The Storms Of Persecution And Staggered By The Winds Of Police Brutality. You Have Been The Veterans Of Creative Suffering. Continue To Work With The Faith That Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

Love Is The Only Creative, Redemptive, Transforming Power, In The Universe.

God Is Not Merely Interestd In The Freedom Of Brown Men, Yellow Men, Red Men And Black Men.he Is Interested In The Freedom Of The Whole Human Race.

When We Allow Freedom Ring, When We Let It Ring From Every Village And Every Hamlet, From Every State And Every City...

I Have A Dream Speech

From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire, Let Freedom Ring. From The Mighty Mountains Of New York, Let Freedom Ring. From The Heightening Alleghenies Of Pennsylvania, Let Freedom Ring. But Not Only That: Let Freedom Ring From Every Hill And Molehill Of Mississippi.

True Sympathy Is The Personal Concern Which Demands The Giving Of One's Soul.

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.

A Piece Of Freedom Is No Longer Enough For Human Beings...unlike Bread, A Slice Of Liberty Does Not Finish Hunger. Freedom Is Like Life. It Cannot Be Had In Installments. Freedom Is Indivisible--we Have It All, Or We Are Not Free.

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

All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity And Importance And Should Be Undertaken With Painstaking Excellence.

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.

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

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

If You Have Not Discovered Something You Are Willing To Die For, Then You Are Not Fit To Live.

In His Essay 'self-reliance' Emerson Wrote, 'whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul Reminds Us That Whoso Would Be A Christian Must Also Be A A Nonconformist. Any Christian Who Blindly Accepts The Opinions Of The Majority And In Fear And Timidity Follows A Path Of Expediency And Social Approval Is A Mental And Spiritual Slave.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Becoming Bitter. As You Press For Justice, Be Sure To Move With Dignity And Discipline, Using Only The Instruments Of Love.

No One Really Knows Why They Are Alive Until They Know What They'd Die For.

Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

Jesus Reminds Us That The Good Life Combines The Toughness Of The Serpent And The Tenderness Of The Dove. To Have Serpent-like Qualities Devoid Of Dovelike Qualities Is To Be Passionless, Mean, And Selfish. To Have Dovelike Without Serpent-like Qualities Is To Be Sentimental, Anemic And Aimless. We Must Combine Strongly Marked Antitheses.

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

We Are Out To Defeat Injustice And Not White Persons Who May Be Unjust.

Mass Civil Disobedience Can Use Rage As A Constructive And Creative Force.

Join With The Earth And Each Other, To Bring New Life To The Land, To Restore The Waters, To Refresh The Air, To Renew The Forests, To Care For The Plants, To Protect The Creatures, To Celebrate The Seas, To Rejoice In The Sunlight, To Sing The Song Of The Stars, To Recall Our Destiny, To Renew Our Spirits, To Reinvigorate Our Bodies, To Recreate The Human Community, To Promote Justice And Peace, To Love Our Children And Love One Another, To Join Together As Many And Diverse Expressions Of One Loving Mystery, For The Healing Of The Earth And The Renewal Of All Life.

Courage Faces Fear And Thereby Masters It. Cowardice Represses Fear And Is Thereby Mastered By It.

I Could Never Adjust To The Separate Waiting Rooms, Separate Eating Places, Separate Rest Rooms, Partly Because The Separate Was Always Unequal, And Partly Because The Very Idea Of Separation Did Something To My Sense Of Dignity And Self-respect.

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.

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.

Everyone Can Be Great, Because Everyone Can Serve.

I'll Tell You, I've Seen The Lightning Flash. I've Heard The Thunder Roll. I Felt Sin-breakers Dashing, Trying To Conquer My Soul. But I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Saying Still To Fight On.

My Study Of Gandhi Convinced Me That True Pacifism Is Not Nonresistance To Evil, But Nonviolent Resistance To Evil. Between The Two Positions, There Is A World Of Difference. Gandhi Resisted Evil With As Much Vigor And Power As The Violent Resister, But True Pacifism Is Not Unrealistic Submission To Evil Power. It Is Rather A Courageous Confrontation Of Evil By The Power Of Love. . . .

We Must Be Concerned Not Merely About Who Murdered Them, But About The System, The Way Of Life, The Philosophy Which Produced The Murderers .

I Am Thankful, However, That Some Of Our White Brothers Have Grasped The Meaning Of This Social Revolution And Committed Themselves To It. They Are Still All Too Small In Quantity, But They Are Big In Quality.

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.

If I Were Constantly Worried About Death, I Couldn't Function. After A While, If Your Life Is More Or Less Constantly In Peril, You Come To A Point Where You Accept The Possibility Philosophically.

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

Let Us Be Practical And Ask The Question: How Do We Love Our Enemies?

Love Your Enemies

An Individual Who Breaks A Law That Conscience Tells Him Is Unjust, And Who Willingly Accepts The Penalty Of Imprisonment In Order To Arouse The Conscience Of The Community Over Its Injustice, Is In Reality Expressing The Highest Respect For The Law.

Brutality Was Imprisoned In A Lumious Glare Revealing The Naked Truth To The Whole World

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

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

Breaking Silence

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

Through Our Scientific And Technological Genius We've Made Of This World A Neighborhood. And Now Through Our Moral And Ethical Commitment We Must Make Of It A Brotherhood. We Must All Learn To Live Together As Brothers-or We Will All Perish Together As Fools.

When We Look At Modern Man, We Have To Face The Fact...that Modern Man Suffers From A Kind Of Poverty Of The Spirit, Which Stands In Glaring Contrast To His Scientific And Technological Abundance; We've Learned To Fly The Air Like Birds, We've Learned To Swim The Seas Like Fish, And Yet We Haven't Learned To Walk The Earth As Brothers And Sisters.

We Aren't Going To Let Any Mace Stop Us. We Are Masters In Our Nonviolent Movement In Disarming Police Forces; They Don't Know What To Do.

If You Can’t Run, Walk; If You Can’t Walk, Crawl, But Keep Moving Forward!

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

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.

When A Nation Becomes Obsessed With The Guns Of War, It Loses Its Social Perspective.... There Is Something About A War Like This That Makes People Insensitive. It Dulls The Conscience. It Strengthens The Forces Of Reaction, And It Brings Into Being Bitterness And Hatred And Violence.

The Difference Between A Dreamer And A Visionary Is That A Dreamer Has His Eyes Closed And A Visionary Has His Eyes Open

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

Our Destiny Is Tied Up With The Destiny Of America.

Love Is Somehow The Key That Unlocks The Door Which Leads To Ultimate Reality.

The Intellectual And Moral Satisfaction That I Failed To Gain From The Utilitarianism Of Bentham And Mill, The Revolutionary Methods Of Marx And Lenin, The Social Contract Theory Of Hobbes, The "back To Nature" Optimism Of Rousseau, And The Superman Philosophy Of Nietzsche, I Found In The Nonviolent Resistance Philosophy Of Gandhi. I Came To Feel That This Was The Only Morally And Practically Sound Method Open To Oppressed People In Their Struggle For Freedom.

The Government Can't Make People Love Me, But It Can Keep Them From Lynching Me.

If I Hit You And You Hit Me And I Hit You Back And You Hit Me Back And Go On, You See, That Goes On Ad Infinitum. It Just Never Ends. Somewhere Somebody Must Have A Little Sense, And That's The Strong Person.

A Man Dies When He Refuses To Stand Up For That Which Is Right.

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 Would Be Misleading You If I Made You Feel That We Could Win A Violent Campaign. It's Impractical Even To Think About It. The Minute We Start, We Will End Up Getting Many More People Killed Unnecessarily. Now, I'm Ready To Die Myself. Many Other Committed People Are Ready To Die. If You Believe In Something Firmly, If You Believe In It Truly, If You Believe It In Your Heart, You Are Willing To Die For It, But I'm Not Going To Advocate A Method That Brings About Unnecessary Death.

There Is Nothing More Tragic Than To Find An Individual Bogged Down In The Length Of Life, Devoid Of Breadth.

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

If We Are To Go Forward, We Must Go Back And Rediscover These Precious Values - That All Reality Hinges On Moral Foundations And That All Reality Has Spiritual Control.

African American

I Look Forward Confidently To The Day When All Who Work For A Living Will Be One With No Thought To Their Separateness As Negroes, Jews, Italians Or Any Other Distinctions. This Will Be The Day When We Bring Into Full Realization The American Dream -- A Dream Yet Unfulfilled.

If I Lived In A Communist Country Today Where Certain Principles Dear To The Christian Faith Are Suppressed, I Believe I Would Openly Advocate Disobeying These Anti-religious Laws.

So Long As I Do Not Firmly And Irrevocably Possess The Right To Vote I Do Not Possess Myself. I Cannot Make Up My Mind - It Is Made Up For Me. I Cannot Live As A Democratic Citizen, Observing The Laws I Have Helped To Enact - I Can Only Submit To The Edict Of Others.

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.

Carve A Tunnel Of Hope Through The Dark Mountain Of Disappointment.

Be Sure To Play "blessed Lord" Tonight - Play It Real Pretty.

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

We Have Moved Into An Era Where We Are Called Upon To Raise Certain Basic Questions About The Whole Society. We Are Still Called Upon To Give Aid To The Beggar Who Finds Himself In Misery And Agony On Life's Highway. But One Day, We Must Ask The Question Of Whether An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Must Not Be Restructured And Refurbished.

When You Are Right You Cannot Be Too Radical; When You Are Wrong, You Cannot Be Too Conservative.

Thought Provoking

The Recent Statement Of Your Executive Committee Are The Sentiments Of My Own Heart And I Found Myself In Full Accord When I Read Its Opening Lines: "a Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal." That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. Some Of Us Who Have Already Begun To Break The Silence Of The Night Have Found That The Calling To Speak Is Often A Vocation Of Agony, But We Must Speak. We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

Racial Segregation Must Be Seen For What It Is, And That Is An Evil System, A New Form Of Slavery Covered Up With Certain Niceties Of Complexity.

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.

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

I Am Not Interested In Power For Power's Sake, But I'm Interested In Power That Is Moral, That Is Right And That Is Good.

A Social Movement That Only Moves People Is Merely A Revolt. A Movement That Changes Both People And Institutions Is A Revolution.

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. The Broad Education Will, Therefore, Transmit To One Not Only The Accumulated Knowledge Of The Race But Also The Accumulated Experience Of Social Living. If We Are Not Careful, Our Colleges Will Produce A Group Of Close-minded, Unscientific, Illogical Propagandists, Consumed With Immoral Acts. Be Careful, Brethren! Be Careful, Teachers!

Civilization And Violence Are Antithetical Concepts.

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

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.

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

This Is The Great New Problem Of Mankind. We Have Inherited A Large House, A Great ‘world House’ In Which We Have To Live Together– Black And White, Easterner And Westerner, Gentile And Jew, Catholic And Protestant, Muslim And Hindu– A Family Unduly Separated In Ideas, Culture And Interest, Who, Because We Can Never Again Live Apart, Must Learn Somehow To Live With Each Other In Peace.

Black And White

Men Often Hate Each Other Because They Fear Each Other; They Fear Each Other Because They Don't Know Each Other; They Don't Know Each Other Because They Can Not Communicate; They Can Not Communicate Because They Are Separated.

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.

Money, Like Any Other Force Such As Electricity, Is Amoral And Can Be Used For Either Good Or Evil.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It.

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.

The Method Of Nonviolence Seeks Not To Humiliate And Not To Defeat The Oppressor, But It Seeks To Win His Friendship And His Understanding. And Thereby And Therefore The Aftermath Of This Method Is Reconciliation.

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

March On Washington

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.

Man Is Not Made For The State; The State Is Made For Man. To Deprive Man Of Freedom Is To Relegate Him To The Status Of A Thing, Rather Than Elevate Him To The Status Of A Person. Man Must Never Be Treated As A Means To The End Of The State, But Always As An End Within Himself.

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.

The Nonviolent Approach Does Not Immediately Change The Heart Of The Oppressor. It First Does Something To The Hearts And Souls Of Those Committed To It. It Gives Them New Self-respect; It Calls Up Resources Of Strength And Courage They Did Not Know They Had.

If I Sought To Answer All Of The Criticisms That Cross My Desk, My Secretaries Would Be Engaged In Little Else In The Course Of The Day, And I Would Have No Time For Constructive Work.

The Soft-minded Man Always Fears Change. He Feels Security In The Status Quo, And He Has An Almost Morbid Fear Of The New. For Him, The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

Segregation, As Even The Segregationists Know In Their Hearts, Is Morally Wrong And Sinful. If It Weren't, The White South Would Not Be Haunted As It Is By A Deep Sense Of Guilt For What It Has Done To The Negro - Guilt For Patronizing Him, Degrading Him, Brutalizing Him, Depersonalizing Him, Thingifying Him; Guilt For Lying To Itself. This Is The Source Of The Schizophrenia That The South Will Suffer Until It Goes Through Its Crisis Of Conscience.

There's Another Reason Why You Should Love Your Enemies, And That Is Because Hate Distorts The Personality Of The Hater. We Usually Think Of What Hate Does For The Individual Hated Or The Individuals Hated Or The Groups Hated. But It Is Even More Tragic, It Is Even More Ruinous And Injurious To The Individual Who Hates. [...] For The Person Who Hates, The True Becomes False And The False Becomes True. That's What Hate Does.

Moral Principles Have Lost Their Distinctiveness. For Modern Man, Absolute Right And Absolute Wrong Are A Matter Of What The Majority Is Doing.

We Must Develop And Maintain The Capacity To Forgive. He Who Is Devoid Of The Power To Forgive Is Devoid Of The Power To Love.

Millions Of Citizens Are Deeply Disturbed That The Military-industrial Complex Too Often Shapes National Policy, But They Do Not Want To Be Considered Unpatriotic.

Justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.

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.

I Became Convinced That Noncooperation With Evil Is As Much A Moral Obligation As Is Cooperation With Good. No Other Person Has Been More Eloquent And Passionate In Getting This Idea Across Than Henry David Thoreau. As A Result Of His Writings And Personal Witness, We Are The Heirs Of A Legacy Of Creative Protest.

In Our Society, It Is Psychological Murder To Deprive A Man Of A Job...you Are In Substance Saying To That Man "you Have No Right To Exist.

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.

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.

The Softminded Person Always Wants To Freeze The Moment And Hold Life In The Gripping Yoke Of Sameness.

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.

Each One Of Us Has The Power To Make Others Feel Better Or Worse. Making Others Feel Better Is Much More Fun Than Making Others Feel Worse. Making Others Feel Better Generally Makes Us Feel Better

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

No One Is Free Until We Are All Free.

We Live In A World Of Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

We Stand In Life At Midnight; We Are Always At The Threshold Of A New Dawn.

The End Of Violence Or The Aftermath Of Violence Is Bitterness. The Aftermath Of Nonviolence Is Reconciliation And The Creation Of A Beloved Community. A Boycott Is Never An End Within Itself. It Is Merely A Means To Awaken A Sense Of Shame Within The Oppressor But The End Is Reconciliation, The End Is Redemption.

Beloved Community

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

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.

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.

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

Eating Breakfast

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.

A Man Dies When He Refuses To Stand Up For That Which Is Right. A Man Dies When He Refuses To Stand Up For Justice. A Man Dies When He Refuses To Take A Stand For That Which Is True.

And I Say To You, I Have Decided To Stick With Love, For I Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems. And I'm Going To Talk About It Everywhere I Go. For I Have Seen Too Much Hate... Every Time I See It, I Know That It Does Something To Their Faces And Their Personalities, And I Say To Myself That Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear. I Have Decided To Love.

When Our Days Become Dreary With Low-hovering Clouds And Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, We Will Know That We Are Living In The Creative Turmoil Of A Genuine Civilization Struggling To Be Born.

So I'm Happy Tonight. I'm Not Worried About Anything. I'm Not Fearing Any Man. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Coming Of The Lord!

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.

For You Will Never Be What You Ought To Be Until They [your Fellow Humans] Are What They Ought To Be.

People With Good Intentions But Limited Understanding Are More Dangerous Than People With Total Ill Will.

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.

O America, How You've Taken Necessities From The Masses To Give Luxuries To The Classes.

I Feel That Segregation Is Totally Unchristian, And That It Is Against Everything The Christian Religion Stands For.

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.

I Have A Dream That My Four Little Children Will One Day Live In A Nation Where They Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin, But By The Content Of Their Character.

It Is Not Possible To Be In Favor Of Justice For Some People And Not Be In Favor Of Justice For All People.

Justice For All

Our Nation Was Born In Genocide When It Embraced The Doctrine That The Original American, The Indian, Was An Inferior Race. ... We Are Perhaps The Only Nation Which Tried As A Matter Of National Policy To Wipe Out Its Indigenous Population. Moreover, We Elevated That Tragic Experience Into A Noble Crusade. Indeed, Even Today We Have Not Permitted Ourselves To Reject Or To Feel Remorse For This Shameful Episode.

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.

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

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

In Any Nonviolent Campaign There Are Four Basic Steps: Collection Of The Facts To Determine Whether Injustices Exist; Negotiation; Self-purification; And Direct Action.

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

Breaking Silence

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

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

I Have Come To See More And More That One Of The Most Decisive Steps That The Negro Can Take Is That Little Walk To The Voting Booth. That Is An Important Step. We've Got To Gain The Ballot, And Through That Gain, Political Power.

Whom You Would Change, You Must First Love.

The Negro Who Experiences Bitter And Agonizing Circumstances As A Result Of Some Ungodly White Person Is Tempted To Look Upon All White Persons As Evil, If He Fails To Look Beyond His Circumstances. But The Minute He Looks Beyond His Circumstances And Sees The Whole Of The Situation, He Discovers That Some Of The Most Implacable And Vehement Advocates Of Racial Equality Are Consecrated White Persons.

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.

Why Should There Be Hunger And Deprivation In Any Land, In Any City, At Any Table, When Man Has The Resources And The Scientific Know-how To Provide All Mankind With The Basic Necessities Of Life? There Is No Deficit In Human Resources. The Deficit Is In Human Will.

I Would Be The Last To Condemn The Thousands Of Sincere And Dedicated People Outside The Churches Who Have Labored Unselfishly Through Various Humanitarian Movements To Cure The World Of Social Evils, For I Would Rather A Man Be A Committed Humanist Than An Uncommitted Christian.

I Won't Have Any Money To Leave Behind. I Won't Have The Fine And Luxurious Things Of Life To Leave Behind. But I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

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

If We Do An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth, We Will Be A Blind And Toothless Nation.

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

Breaking Silence

It Is Precisely Because Education Is The Road To Equality And Citizenship, That It Has Been Made More Elusive For Negroes Than Many Other Rights. The Walling Off Of Negroes From Equal Education Is Part Of The Historical Design To Submerge Him In Second Class Status. Therefore, As Negroes Have Struggled To Be Free They Have Had To Fight For The Opportunity For A Decent Education.

The True Neighbor Will Risk His Position, His Prestige, And Even His Life For The Welfare Of Others.

The Poor In Our Countries Have Been Shut Out Of Our Minds And Driven From The Mainstream Of Our Societies, Because We Have Allowed Them To Become Invisible.

In A Real Sense Faith Is Total Surrender To God .

Like Paul, I Must Constantly Respond To The Macedonian Call For Aid.

There's Something About Love That Builds Up And Is Creative. There Is Something About Hate That Tears Down And Is Destructive. So Love Your Enemies.

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change. Every Society Has Its Protectors Of Status Quo And Its Fraternities Of The Indifferent Who Are Notorious For Sleeping Through Revolutions. Today, Our Very Survival Depends On Our Ability To Stay Awake, To Adjust To New Ideas, To Remain Vigilant And To Face The Challenge Of Change.

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

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.

If Physical Death Is The Price That I Must Pay To Free My White Brothers And Sisters From A Permanent Death Of The Spirit, Then Nothing Can Be More Redemptive.

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.

The Hope Of A Secure And Livable World Lies With Disciplined Nonconformists Who Are Dedicated To Justice, Peace And Brotherhood.

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