“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self assertive humble. ...truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis that reconciles the two.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and think critically. Intelligence plus character; that is the goal of a true education.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Anyone who lives inside the US can never be considered an outsider anywhere in the country”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
“Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr
