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Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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We must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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 they did not know they had.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I'm sure you have seen people in life who are so desirous of gaining attention that if they cannot have and gain attention through normal channels, through normal social channels, they will gain it through anti-social means. […] They are so selfcentered that they must gain attention and they must be seen in order to survive. They want to be admired and in their quest for admiration, they don't gain it and in their failure to gain it, they become frustrated and bewildered and disillusioned. Also, it leads to extreme sensitiveness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners — all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty — and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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One of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self criticism.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
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In the current struggle, there is one positive course of action. There is no alternative, for the alternative would connote a rear march...
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Moral principles have lost their distinctiveness. For modern man, absolute right and absolute wrong are a matter of what the majority is doing.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I don't mind telling you this morning that sometimes I feel discouraged. I felt discouraged in Chicago. As I move through Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama, I feel discouraged. Living every day under the threat of death, I feel discouraged sometimes. Living every day under extensive criticisms, even from Negroes, I feel discouraged sometimes. Yes, sometimes I feel discouraged and feel my work's in vain. But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ears of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Set yourself earnestly to discover what you are made to do, and then give yourself passionately to the doing of it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We are here, we are here this evening because we're tired now. And I want to say that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation that we are Christian people. We believe in the Christian religion. We believe in the teachings of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Creative Commons
Born:
January 15, 1929
Died:
April 4, 1968
(aged 39)
Bio:
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who was a leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
Known for:
I Have a Dream (1963)
The Autobiography Of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Why We Can't Wait (1964)
Strength to Love (1963)
Most used words:
love
god
man
life
people
freedom
hate
nation
justice
white
violence
power
law
live
negro
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