“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We are 10 percent of the population of this nation and it would be foolish for me to stand up and tell you we are going to get our freedom by ourselves. There’s going to have to be a coalition of conscience and we aren’t going to be free here in Mississippi and anywhere in the United States until there is a committed empathy on the part of the white man of this country, and he comes to see along with us that segregation denigrates him as much as it does the Negro.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The old guard in any society resents new methods, for old guards wear the decorations and medals won by waging battle in the accepted manner.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. ”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“...law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down."
--From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr