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When We Ask Negroes To Abide By The Law, Let Us Also Declare That The White Man Does Not Abide By Law In The Ghettos. Day In And Day Out He Violates Welfare Laws To Deprive The Poor Of Their Meager Allotments; He Flagrantly Violates Building Codes And Regulations; His Police Make A Mockery Of Law; He Violates Laws On Equal Employment And Education And The Provisions Of Civil Services. The Slums Are The Handiwork Of A Vicious System Of The White Society; Negroes Live In Them, But They Do Not Make Them, Any More Than A Prisoner Makes A Prison.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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When We Ask Negroes

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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When We Ask Negroes To Abide By The Law, Let Us Also Declare That The White Man Does Not Abide By Law In The Ghettos. Day In And Day Out He Violates Welfare Laws To Deprive The Poor Of Their Meager Allotments; He Flagrantly Violates Building Codes And Regulations; His Police Make A Mockery Of Law; He Violates Laws On Equal Employment And Education And The Provisions Of Civil Services. The Slums Are The Handiwork Of A Vicious System Of The White Society; Negroes Live In Them, But They Do Not Make Them, Any More Than A Prisoner Makes A Prison.

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It's Not How Long A Man Lives, But How Well He Uses The Time Allotted Him.

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War Is A Poor Chisel To Carve Out Tomorrow.

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.

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.

I Would Rather Be A Man Of Conviction Than A Man Of Conformity

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What Is More Tragic Than To See A Person Who Has Risen To The Disciplined Heights Of Tough-mindedness But Has At The Same Time Sunk To The Passionless Depths Of Hard-heartedness?

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Injustice Anywhere

No One Is Free Until We Are All Free.

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

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

Will We Be Extremists For Hate, Or Will We Be Extremists For Love? Will We Be Extremists For The Preservation Of Injustice, Or Will We Be Extremists For The Cause Of Justice?

The Means By Which We Live Have Outdistanced The Ends For Which We Live.

Inspirational Life

Let Us Develop A Kind Of Dangerous Unselfishness.

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A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal.

Look To A Day When People Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin.

Every Man Is Somebody Because He Is A Child Of God.

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I Have A Dream That One Day Even The State Of Mississippi, A Desert State, Sweltering With The Heat Of Injustice And Oppression, Will Be Transformed Into An Oasis Of Freedom And Justice.

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Everyone Can Be Great, Because Everyone Can Serve.

The Art Of Acceptance Is The Art Of Making Someone Who Has Just Done You A Small Favor Wish That He Might Have Done You A Greater One.

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Be True To What You Said On Paper.

One Who Condones Evils Is Just As Guilty As The One Who Perpetrates It.

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.

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An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everybody Blind.

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Power At Its Best Is Love Implementing The Demand Of Justice.

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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.

I Must Face The Fact, As All Others In Positions Of Leadership Must Do, That America Today Is An Extremely Sick Nation, And That Something Could Well Happen To Me At Any Time. I Feel, Though, That My Cause Is So Right, So Moral, That If I Should Lose My Life, In Some Way It Would Aid The Cause.

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

Love Your Enemies

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

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

The Negro's Problem Will Not Be Solved By Running Away.

In The Struggle For Human Rights And Justice, Negros Will Make A Mistake If They Become Bitter And Indulge In Hate Campaigns.

I" Cannot Reach Fulfillment Without "thou." The Self Cannot Be Self Without Other Selves. Self-concern Without Other-concern Is Like A Tributary That Has No Outward Flow To The Ocean.

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Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted.

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

I Think That My Strong Determination For Justice Comes From The Very Strong, Dynamic Personality Of My Father ... I Have Rarely Ever Met A Person More Fearless And Courageous Than My Father ... The Thing That I Admire Most About My Dad Is His Genuine Christian Character. He Is A Man Of Real Integrity, Deeply Committed To Moral And Ethical Principles. He Is Conscientious In All Of His Undertakings ... If I Had A Problem I Could Always Call Daddy.

We Must Shift The Arms Race Into A 'peace Race'.

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

Even In The Inevitable Moments When All Seems Hopeless, Men Know That Without Hope They Cannot Really Live, And In Agonizing Desperation They Cry For The Bread Of Hope.

To Dislocate The Functioning Of A City Without Destroying It Can Be More Effective Than A Riot Because It Can Be Longer-lasting, Costly To The Society But Not Wantonly Destructive, Moreover, It Is More Difficult For Government To Quell It By Superior Force.

You Have To Keep Moving Forward

Keep Moving Forward

And See Ominous Clouds Of Inferiority Beginning To Form In Her Little Mental Sky.

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

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.

Justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.

The Darwinian Concept Of The Survival Of The Fittest Has Been Substituted By A Philosophy Of The Survival Of The Slickest.

It Is A Tragic Mix-up When The United States Spends 500,000 For Every Enemy Soldier Killed, And Only 53 Annually On The Victims Of Poverty.

Everyone Has An Opportunity To Be Great Because Everyone Has An Opportunity To Serve.

Loving Your Enemies... Far From Being The Pious Injunction Of A Utopian Dreamer, This Demand Is An Absolute Necessity For The Survival Of Our Civilization. Yes It Is Love That Will Save Our World And Civilization; Love Even For Our Enemies.

Courage Faces Fear And Thereby Masters It

Violence Never Really Deals With The Basic Evil Of The Situation. Violence May Murder The Murderer, But It Doesn’t Murder Murder. Violence May Murder The Liar, But It Doesn’t Murder Lie; It Doesn’t Establish Truth. Violence May Even Murder The Dishonest Man, But It Doesn’t Murder Dishonesty. Violence May Go To The Point Of Murdering The Hater, But It Doesn’t Murder Hate. It May Increase Hate. It Is Always A Descending Spiral Leading Nowhere. This Is The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence: It Multiplies Evil And Violence In The Universe. It Doesn’t Solve Any Problems.

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

I Have A Dream Speech

One Of These Days I'm Going To Put My Body Where My Mind Is.

We Did Not Hesitate To Call Our Movement An Army. But It Was A Special Army, With No Supplies But Its Sincerity, No Uniform But Its Determination, No Arsenal Except Its Faith, No Currency But Its Conscience.

If The Negro Is To Achieve The Goal Of Integration, He Must Organize Himself Into A Militant And Nonviolent Mass Movement.

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

"i Criticize America Because I Love Her. I Want Her To Stand As A Moral Example To The World."

We Must Use Time Creatively.

Israel... Is One Of The Great Outpost Of Democracy In The World

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.

There Is Little Hope For Us Until We Become Tough-minded Enough To Break Loose From The Shackles Of Prejudice, Half-truths, And Down-right Ignorance.

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Algernon Sidney

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