“One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it an never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
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Dignity
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“De marxist zou beweren dat de staat een interimrealiteit is die zal verdwijnen als de klasseloze maatschappij is ontstaan, maar tot op dat moment blijft de staat het doel en is de mens alleen maar een middel om dat doel te bereiken. Als de zogenaamde rechten of vrijheden van de mens dat doel in de weg staan, worden ze zonder meer terzijde geschoven. De vrijheid van meningsuiting, het stemrecht, de vrijheid om boeken of kranten naar eigen keuze te lezen, worden beperkt. In het communisme is de mens weinig meer dan een onpersoonlijk gemaakt radertje in de machinerie van de staat. Deze inperking van de individiuele vrijheid vond ik verwerpelijk. Ik ben er nu, net als toen, van overtuigd dat de mens een doel is, omdat hij een kind van God is. De mens is niet gemaakt voor de staat; de staat is gemaakt voor de mens. Als je de mens berooft van zijn vrijheid, degenereer je hem tot een ding, terwijl je hem juist moet verheffen tot persoon. De mens mag noit behandeld worden als een middel in dienst van de staat, maar moet altijd als doel op zich worden beschouwd”
―
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”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today...
...some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there
are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are
worth dying for. And if a person has not found something to die for, that
person isn't fit to live!”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
―
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
“There are two types of laws, those that are just and those that are unjust. A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law...Any law that uplifts the human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
