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Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes - Page 5

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If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.

If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Song, Cheer, Volunteer
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.224, Beacon Press

History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational, Giving Up, Long
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.89, Beacon Press

We must face the appalling fact that we have been betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Party, Betrayed, Faces
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.32, Beacon Press

Life's piano can only produce melodies of brotherhood (and sisterhood) when it is recognized that the black keys are as basic, necessary and beautiful as the white keys.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life, Beautiful, Sisterhood

Was not Jesus an extremist in love? - "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational, Jesus, Love You
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.98, Beacon Press

We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Gay, Destiny, Together

‎It is a cruel injustice to tell a bootless man to pull himself up by his bootstraps.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Men, Injustice, Bootstraps

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sad, Wisdom, Bad Relationship
Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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.
Life, Greatness, Diversity
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (2017). “The Measure of a Man”, p.18, Pickle Partners Publishing

Why should there be hunger and deprivation in any land, in any city, at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? There is no deficit in human resources. The deficit is in human will.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Men, Land, Cities
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.86, Beacon Press

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational, Kings, Health

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change, Strength, Inspiring

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.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational, Hero, Evil
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.26, Beacon Press

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Peace, Kings, Fear
"Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?". Book by Martin Luther King Jr., 1967.

The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Men, Criminals, May
Martin Luther King (1992). “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr”, p.124, Univ of California Press

School takes 13 years, because that is how long it takes to break a child's spirit.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Children, School, Years

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Peace, Hate, War

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spiritual, Church, Doe
1963 Strength to Love.

It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of high maturity, to rise to the level of self-criticism.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Maturity, Self, Criticism
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2010). “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”, p.151, Beacon Press

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Powerful, Reality, Web Of Life
Methodist Student Leadership Conference Address, delivered 1964, Lincoln, Nebraska

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor 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.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Peace, Block, Order
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Alabama, 16 Apr. 1963, in Atlantic Monthly Aug. 1963, p. 81

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational, Peace, Freedom
1963 Speech at the Lincoln Memorial, 28 Aug, during the March on Washington.

This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together– black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu– a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Black And White, Ideas, House
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.17, Beacon Press

The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Philosophy, Eye, Leaving

You can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mean, Evil, Tree

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