“One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. 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
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
―
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
“noncooperation with evil is just as much a moral duty as is cooperation with good.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“There are two types of laws, those that are just and those that are unjust. A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law...Any law that uplifts the human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Instinctively we struck out for dignity first because personal degradation as an inferior human being was even more keenly felt than material privation.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
