Quotes By Martin Luther King Jr

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate.

Your life begins to end the moment you start being silent about the things that matter.

There are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.

No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

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.

Peace is not simply the absence of conflict, but the existence of justice for all people.

I firmly believe that the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent resistance is the only logical and moral approach to the solution of the race problem in the United States.

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.

If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

We stand in life at midnight; we are always at the threshold of a new dawn.

Darkness cannot be overcome with more darkness, only with light. Violence cannot be overcome with more violence, only with peace.

Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in.

The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

In the struggle for human rights and justice, Negros will make a mistake if they become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns.

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.

In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age.

Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

Our children need our presence, not our presents.

A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.

One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.

The best way to solve any problem is to remove its cause.

We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.

Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.

Without justice, there can be no peace.

A lie cannot live.

I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.

I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.

There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.

A productive and happy life is not something you find; it is something you make.

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.

Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.

The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. Because of our involvement in humanity we must be concerned about every human being.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

It's not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.

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. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.

Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

You don't need to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

Seeing is not always believing.

A right delayed is a right denied.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.