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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Personality, Hate
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate… Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Violence, Love, Peace
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Age, Quality
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Law
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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Change
Not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Rightness, Right
In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolutions, Revolution
I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Commitment, Dying, Death, Dedication, Vision, Nature
I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Time Management, Goodness, Integrity, Acceptance, Spending time wisely, Time
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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Ideas
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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Power, Forgiveness
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Love, Violence
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood 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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Equality, Dreams, Tolerance, Character
Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Weapon
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Philanthropy
Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Happiness
The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. A group of people who have come to see that some things are wrong, whether they’re never caught up with. And some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Like a boil that must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed to the light of human conscience before it can be cured.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Fear, Bravery, Courage
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Wildlife, Decision
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Love
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am presently experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: The Future, Joy, Excitement
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”.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Oppression
We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Mind, The Mind
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Relationships
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Weapon, Humanity, Power, Science
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Acceptance, Hope, Disappointment
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Rosa Parks American Civil Rights Leader
- Jesse Jackson American Civil Rights Leader
- Whitney Young American Civil Rights Leader
- W. E. B. Du Bois American Sociologist, Activist
- Carrie Chapman Catt American Suffragist
- Susan B. Anthony American Civil Rights Leader
- Malcolm X American Civil Rights Leader
- The 14th Dalai Lama Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader
- Marian Wright Edelman American Activist
- Billy Graham American Baptist Religious Leader
Leave a Reply