Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes

“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”

“Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.”

“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.”

“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

“A woman can have a smile, and a woman can have a large backside, but I have been to the mountain and I am here to tell you that when a woman has both of those things she is not to be trusted.”

“I'm thinking of love in action and not something where you say, "Love your enemies," and just leave it at that, but you love your enemies to the point that you're willing to sit-in at a lunch counter in order to help them find themselves. You're willing to go to jail.”

“Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.”

“The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail-blazers in human, scientific and religious freedom have always been in a minority.”

“We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.”

“I would rather be a man of conviction than a man of conformity”

“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.”

“Returning hate, adding deeper darkness to a night that is already void of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“And violence is impractical, because the old eye for an eye philosophy ends up leaving everybody blind .. It is immoral because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for everybody. Means and ends are inseparable. The means represent the ideal in the making; in the long run of history destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

“We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society . . . . What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed.”

“A man who hasn't found anything he'd die for doesn't deserve to live.”

“When the Negro finds the courage to be free, he faces dogs and guns and clubs and fire hoses totally unafraid, and the white men with those dogs, guns, clubs and fire hoses see that the Negro they have traditionally called "boy" has become a man.”

“When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom.”

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

“Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?”

“As a teenager I had never been able to accept the fact of having to go to the back of a bus or sit in the segregated section of a train. The first time I had been seated behind a curtain in a dining car, I felt as if the curtain had been dropped on my selfhood.”

“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?”

“The job of the school is to teach so well that family background is no longer an issue.”

“Never, never be afraid to do what's right.”

“There is no gain without struggle.”