“We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“You just have to take the first step , you don't have to see the whole staircase.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“This is the unusual thing about nonviolence -- nobody is defeated, everybody shares in the victory.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“After the riot in Chicago that Summer, I was greatly discouraged. But we had trained a group of about two thousand disciplined devotees of nonviolence who were willing to take blows without retaliation. We started out engaging in constitutional privileges, marching before real estate offices in all-white communities. And that nonviolent , disciplined, determined force created such a crisis in the city of Chicago that the city had to do something to change conditions. We didn’t have any Molotov cocktails, we didn’t have any bricks, we didn’t have guns, we just had the power of our bodies and our souls. There was power there, and it was demonstrated once more.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
