“All too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, 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. ... The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We must condemn those who are perpetuating the violence, and not the individuals who engage in the pursuit of their constitutional rights.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“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.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“This would be an unbearable world were God to have only a single light, but we may be consoled that God has two lights: a light to guide us in the brightness of the day when hopes are fulfilled and circumstances are favorable, and a light to guide us in the darkness of the midnight when we are thwarted and the slumbering giants of gloom and hopelessness rise in our souls.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“...and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky...”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“First, 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. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
