Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.
Power is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice is love correcting everything that goes against love.
To have peace in the world, men & nations must embrace the nonviolent assertion that ends and means must cohere.
I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak... Non-violence is hard work.
We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down." --From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris
We must have the faith that things will work out somehow, that God will make a way for us when there seems no way.
Often the oppressor goes along unaware of the evil involved in his oppression so long as the oppressed accepts it.
While the question of who killed President Kennedy is important, the question 'what killed him' is more important.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.
Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
You can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
Set yourself earnestly to discover what you are made to do, and then give yourself passionately to the doing of it.
Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
If you're not frightened that you might fail, you'll never do the job. If you're frightened, you'll work like crazy.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
The words 'I will forgive you, but I'll never forget what you've done' never explain the real nature of forgiveness.
History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter - but beautiful - struggle for a new world.
I feel that segregation is totally unchristian, and that it is against everything the Christian religion stands for.
Violence just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.
... the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.
You know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.
Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral.
But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
[People] don't see that there's a great deal of a difference between nonresistance to evil and nonviolent resistance.
The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
We aren't going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.
Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
[E]very human life is a reflection of divinity, and... every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man.
When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city...
The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open
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.
The greatness of man cannot be seen in the hours of comfort and convenience, but rather in moments of conflict/adversity
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.
My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him.
A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred.