“We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world – wide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.
We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“During a crisis period, a desperate attempt is made by the extremists to influence the minds of the liberal forces in the ruling majority. So, for example, in the present transition white Southerners attempt to convince Northern whites that the Negroes are inherently criminal.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“My friends, we cannot win the respect of the white people of the South or elsewhere if we are willing to trade the future of our children for our personal safety or comfort. Moreover, 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. ... 'Put up thy sword.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“it is just as wrong, or even perhaps more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
