Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Work, Society
Effects one directly, effects all indirectly.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Kindness
Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: War
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Peace
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Satisfaction
Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Property
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Hatred, Love, Hate
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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Humanity, Humankind, Violence
Life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Poverty
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Help, Society, Cooperation
Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Self-Discovery
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Dreams
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: Goodness, Tolerance, Light, Hate, Love
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.
—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: The Mind, Mind
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Activism, Enemies, Friendship, Silence
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, Science, Humanity, Power
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. , Jr 1929
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Labor, Pain, Work, Excellence
Riots are the voices of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolution, Revolutions
Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
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: Integrity, Time, Goodness, Acceptance, Spending time wisely, Time Management
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Topics: Freedom, Society
It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
I feel that we will continue to have a non-violent movement, and we will continue to find the vast majority of Negroes committed to non-violence, at least as the best tactical approach and from a pragmatic point of view as the best strategy in dealing with the problem of racial injustice. Realism impels me to admit, however, that when there is justice and the pursuit of justice, violence appears, and where there is injustice and frustration, the potentialities for violence are greater, and I would like to strongly stress the point that the more we can achieve victories through non-violence, the more it will be possible to keep the non-violent discipline at the center of the movement. But the more we find individuals facing conditions of frustration, conditions of disappointment and seething despair as a result of the slow pace of things and the failure to change conditions, the more it will be possible for the apostles of violence to interfere.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Rosa Parks American Civil Rights Leader
- Jesse Jackson American Baptist Civil Rights Activist
- 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 Civil Regrets Advocate
- Billy Graham American Baptist Religious Leader
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