“Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self assertive humble. ...truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis that reconciles the two.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“For you will never be what you ought to be until they [your fellow humans] are what they ought to be.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, people will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. But to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“All my adult life I have deplored violence and war as instruments for achieving solutions to mankind’s problems. I am firmly committed to the creative power of nonviolence as the force which is capable of winning lasting and meaningful brotherhood and peace.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
