“I am convinced that even violent temperaments can be channeled through nonviolent discipline, if they can act constructively and express through an effective channel their very legitimate anger.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“For you will never be what you ought to be until they [your fellow humans] are what they ought to be.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“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.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“If you can not fly then run. If you can not run then walk. If you can not walk then crawl, but whatever you do keep moving forward”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tired into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“This is the unusual thing about nonviolence -- nobody is defeated, everybody shares in the victory.”
―
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.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Violent revolts are generated by revolting conditions and there is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of people who feel they have no stake in it, who feel they have nothing to lose. To the young victim of the slums, this society has so limited the alternatives of his life that the expression of his manhood is reduced to the ability to defend himself physically.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
