Martin Luther King, Jr.

Attributed

• "A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard."

• "Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

• "Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be - a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "you are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God. Men will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore." I don't know about you, I ain't going to study war anymore."

• "Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

• "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."

• "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played 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."

• "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

• "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

• "I do not believe in the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down the militaristic stairwell into the hell of mutually assured thermo-nuclear destruction."

• "Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

• "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

• "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

• "On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right."

• "Our scientific powers have outrun our spiritual powers; we have guided missiles and mis-guided men."

• "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

• "The time is always right to do what is right."

• "The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

• "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."

• "True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice."

• "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

• "We must use time creatively -- and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things."

• "We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart."

• "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

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