“I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Prima o poi arriva l'ora in cui bisogna prendere una posizione che non è né sicura, né conveniente, né popolare; ma bisogna prenderla, perché è giusta.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
"A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right....”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
―
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
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Whatever measure of influence I had as a result of the importance which the world attaches to the Nobel Peace Prize would have to be used to bring the philosophy of nonviolence to all the world’s people who grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
