“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win, and their participants know it.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Today it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The question was not whether one should use his gun when his home was attacked, but whether it was tactically wise to use a gun while participating in an organized demonstration. If they lowered the banner of nonviolence, I said, Mississippi injustice would not be exposed and the moral issues would be obscured.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“...and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky...”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“First, 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. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
