“The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“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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“Only a "dry as dust" religion prompts a minister to extol the glories of Heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause men an Earthly hell.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The plain, inexorable fact was that any attempt of the America Negro to overthrow his oppressor with violence would not work...The courageous efforts of our own insurrectionist brothers, such as Denmark Vassey and Nat Turner, should be eternal reminders to us that a violent rebellion is doomed from the start. Anyone leading a violent rebellion must be willing to make an honest assessment regarding the possible casualties to a minority population confronting a well-armed, wealthy majority with a fanatical right wing that would delight in exterminating thousands of black men, women, and children.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.”
―
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
“If you haven't found something you're willing to die for, than you don't deserve to live”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“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. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.”
―
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
“There is no noise as powerful as the sound of the marching feet of a determined people.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I suggested then that the prize was not given merely as recognition of past achievement, but also as recognition, a more profound recognition, that the nonviolent way, the American Negro's way, was the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
