"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable......" - Quote by Martin Luther King Jr
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
More by Martin Luther King Jr
“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.... There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,' but will curse and damn you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!' There is something wrong with that press.”
“America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'”
“I had a very depressing response because I realized that these were my own people, these were Negroes throwing eggs at me. I'm concerned about the fact that maybe all of us have contributed to this by not working harder to get rid of the conditions, the poverty, the social isolation, and all of the conditions that cause individuals to respond like this.”
More on Progress
“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”
“It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountain top and pointed the way to the Promised Land. Yes we can!”
“It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers.”
More on Justice
“War can only be qualified by its object, and there is neither foreign war nor civil war, there is only just or unjust war.”
“I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.”
“If the government can't get the black man justice, then it's time for the black man to get some justice for himself.”