“We are 10 percent of the population of this nation and it would be foolish for me to stand up and tell you we are going to get our freedom by ourselves. There’s going to have to be a coalition of conscience and we aren’t going to be free here in Mississippi and anywhere in the United States until there is a committed empathy on the part of the white man of this country, and he comes to see along with us that segregation denigrates him as much as it does the Negro.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live.”
―
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
“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
―
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
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be taken by the oppressed.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to work to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
