“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.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies...but the silence of our friends.
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
―
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
tag:
Silence
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“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“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