“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“What you’re saying may get you a foundation grant but it won’t get you into the kingdom of truth.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“our slogan must not be “Burn, baby, burn.” It must be, “Build, baby, build.” “Organize, baby, organize.” Yes, our slogan must be “Learn, baby, learn,” so that we can earn, baby, earn.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“This is the unusual thing about nonviolence -- nobody is defeated, everybody shares in the victory.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“Economic insecurity strangles the physical and cultural growth of its victims. Not only are millions deprived of formal education and proper health facilities but our most fundamental social unit—the family—is tortured, corrupted, and weakened by economic insufficiency. When a Negro man is inadequately paid, his wife must work to provide the simple necessities for the children. When a mother has to work she does violence to motherhood by depriving her children of her loving guidance and protection; often they are poorly cared for by others or by none—left to roam the streets unsupervised. It is not the Negro alone who is wronged by a disrupted society; many white families are in similar straits. The Negro mother leaves home to care for—and be a substitute mother for—white children, while the white mother works. In this strange irony lies the promise of future correction.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“All of the people of the world cannot do the so-called big things. Some of us will have to be content doing the so-called little things, but we must do the little things in a big way. We must do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. And we must overcome our sense of inferiority by doing just this - by somehow accepting that we have to do and doing that well”
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Martin Luther King Jr
“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”
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Martin Luther King Jr