Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes & Sayings

We all came in on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now — Martin Luther King Jr.

When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact ... that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance; We've learned to fly the air like birds, we've learned to swim the seas like fish, and yet we haven't learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters ... — Martin Luther King Jr.

The more there are riots, the more repressive actin will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society. — Martin Luther King Jr.

To sway an audience, you must watch them as you speak. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word ... Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests. Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything Black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word Black. It's always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word White, it's always something pure, high and clean. Well I want to get the language right tonight. I want to get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: 'Yes, I'm Black, I'm proud of it. I'm Black and I'm beautiful!' — Martin Luther King Jr.

I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community. — Martin Luther King Jr.

For you all think God is one who rewards good and punishes evil, but I say to you that God is one who loves you and has compassion for everyone. You just have to pray to Him and believe in Him. He will always be your guiding light. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' — Martin Luther King Jr.

No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The ability to lead a happy life is made, not found — Martin Luther King Jr.

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ' an unjust law is no law at all. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi. — Martin Luther King Jr.

School takes 13 years, because that is how long it takes to break a child's spirit. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Even if I were certain that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree this very day — Martin Luther King Jr.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. — Martin Luther King Jr.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Our only hope lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism — Martin Luther King Jr.

The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonviolence is an imperative in order to bring about ultimate community. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There are several specific things that the church can do. First, it should try to get to the ideational roots of race hate, something that the law cannot accomplish. All race prejudice is based upon fears, suspicions, and misunderstandings, usually groundless. The church can be of immeasurable help in giving the popular mind direction here. Through its channels of religious education, the church can point out the irrationality of these beliefs. It can show that the idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence. It can show that Negroes are not innately inferior in academic, health, and moral standards. It can show that, when given equal opportunities, Negroes can demonstrate equal achievement. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And, more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Your self-image should not come from the job you do but from how well you do your job. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We live in a world of guided missiles
and misguided men. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In this world is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man. — Martin Luther King Jr.

And somewhere along the way it is necessary to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. — Martin Luther King Jr.

One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Violence is anything that denies human integrity, and leads to hopelessness and helplessness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If you've got nothing worth dying for, you've got nothing worth living for. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers? — Martin Luther King Jr.

I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, people will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. — Martin Luther King Jr.

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. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I have a dream, one dream, keep dreaming. Dream of freedom, justice dreaming, dreaming of equality and hopefully no longer required to dream them — Martin Luther King Jr.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Yet the average white person also has a responsibility. He has to resist the impulse to seize upon the rioter as the exclusive villain. He has to rise up with indignation against his own municipal, state and national governments to demand that the necessary reforms be instituted which alone will protect him. If he reserves his resentment only for the Negro, he will be the victim by allowing those who have the greatest culpability to evade responsibility. — Martin Luther King Jr.

[W]e are the heirs of a past of rope, fire, and murder. I for one am not ashamed of this past. My shame is for those who became so inhuman that they could inflict this torture upon us. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Since crime often grows out of a sense of futility and despair, Negro parents must be urged to give their children the love, attention, and sense of belonging that a segregated society deprives them of. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve. — Martin Luther King Jr.

And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence. — Martin Luther King Jr.

You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of the slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The darkest hour of our struggle had become the hour of victory. Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows. I — Martin Luther King Jr.

There are those who write history. There are those who make history. There are those who experience history. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The truth may hurt, but love helps ease the pain. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Truth is found neither in Marxism nor in traditional capitalism. Each represents a partial truth. Historically capitalism failed to see the truth in collective enterprise, and Marxism failed to see the truth in individual enterprise. Nineteenth century capitalism failed to see that life is social and Marxism failed and still fails to see that life is individual and personal. The Kingdom of God is neither the thesis of individual enterprise nor the antithesis of collective enterprise, but a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both. — Martin Luther King Jr.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. — Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the greatest paradoxes of the Black Power movement was that it talked unceasingly about not imitating the values of white society, but in advocating violence it was imitating the worst, the most brutal, and the most uncivilized value of American life. American Negroes had not been mass murderers. They had not murdered children in Sunday school, nor had they hung white men on trees bearing strange fruit. They had not been hooded perpetrators of violence, lynching human beings at will and drowning them at whim. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If you want to be important-wonderful. If you want to be recognized-wonderful. If you want to be great-wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind - it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact - I can only submit to the edict of others. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can't stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they'll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That's love, you see. It is redemptive ... — Martin Luther King Jr.

The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door. — Martin Luther King Jr.

the time is always right to do the right thing — Martin Luther King Jr.

What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness? — Martin Luther King Jr.

I would suffer all the humiliation, all the torture, the absolute ostracism and even death, to prevent violence — Martin Luther King Jr.

Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear always precedes the crown we wear. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I've been to the Mountaintop — Martin Luther King Jr.

Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare. — Martin Luther King Jr.

But alas! Science cannot now rescue us, for even the scientist is lost in the terrible midnight of our age. Indeed, science gave us the very instruments that threaten to bring universal suicide. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Life isn't worth living until you have found something worth dying for. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I've decided to stick with love. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed 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. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There is nothing more tragic in all the world than to know right and not to do it. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The softminded person always wants to freeze the moment and hold life in the gripping yoke of sameness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. — Martin Luther King Jr.

This is the glory of our religion: that when man decides to rise up from his mistakes, from his sin, from his evil, there is a loving God saying, Come home, I still love you. — Martin Luther King Jr.

You can't stop a bird from landing on your head. But you can keep it from building a nest. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We must realize that a vast majority of believers are still searching and will continue to search for the being who is the "source of human good." Those who seek with clear heads and sincere hearts will in some measure find. Of course the true seeker will realize that there is no one way to find God. To be sure, there are many possible ways of finding God. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Let Freedom Ring. — Martin Luther King Jr.

There are two types of laws, those that are just and those that are unjust. A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law ... Any law that uplifts the human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words 'Too Late'. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The decision we must make now is whether we will give our allegiance to outmoded and unjust customs or to the ethical demands of the universe. As Christians we owe our allegiance to God and His will, rather than to man and his folkways — Martin Luther King Jr.

It must be remembered that genuine peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority. — Martin Luther King Jr.