Martin Luther King, Jr. - Strength to Love (1963)

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Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
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. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige and even his life for the welfare of others.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are usually not 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. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.

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.
I would urge you to give priority to the search for God. Allow his spirit to permeate your being.... If you do not have a deep and patient faith in God, you will be powerless to face the delays, disappointments, and vicissitudes that inevitably come.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists... Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.

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

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.
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.
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.
The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Christian gospel is a two-way road. On the one hand, it seeks to change the souls of men, and thereby unite them with God; on the other hand, it seeks to change the environmental conditions of men so the soul will have a chance after it is changed.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our problem is not to be rid of fear but rather to harness and master 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.
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.
The words 'I will forgive you, but I'll never forget what you've done' never explain the real nature of forgiveness.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Martin Luther King, Jr.