“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win, and their participants know it.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I am convinced that even violent temperaments can be channeled through nonviolent discipline, if they can act constructively and express through an effective channel their very legitimate anger.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“As long as the struggle was down in Alabama and Mississippi, they could look afar and think about it and say how terrible people are. When they discovered brotherhood had to be a reality in Chicago and that brotherhood extended to next door, then those latent hostilities came out.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.”
―
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
“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“No one can pretend that because a people may be oppressed, every individual member is virtuous and worthy.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even the enemy”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
