Martin Luther King Jr. > Quotes

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices on Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: An African American Anthology

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
― 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.

“If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent”
― 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.

“One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...
This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation: Library Edition

“And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A lie cannot live.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it an never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Hate destroys the hater...”
― 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.

“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. ”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!”
― 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.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world – wide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.

We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.”
― 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.