“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. (from "Loving Your Enemies")”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny. To a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“When I took up the cross I recognized it's meaning. The cross is something that you bear, and ultimately, that you die on.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Anyone who lives inside the US can never be considered an outsider anywhere in the country”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there
are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are
worth dying for. And if a person has not found something to die for, that
person isn't fit to live!”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“You can't stop a bird from landing on your head. But you can keep it from building a nest.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“There is no noise as powerful as the sound of the marching feet of a determined people.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
