Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.
The only time I have problems is when I sleep.
I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.
Courage is exhilarating.
Nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.It doesn't matter much to me.
Lord help me to see M. L. King as M. L. King in his true perspective.
In our country we must trust the people to hear and see both the good and the bad and to choose the good.
My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple.
Look the world straight in the eye.
Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.
In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
I don't care who you are, you're going to choke in certain matches. You get to a point where your legs don't move and you can't take a deep breath. You start to hit the ball about a yard wide, instead of inches.
Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up.
May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership... Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
And thats the way it was and thats the way the cookie crumbles
My homie lost his family and snapped, shot up half the block to bring them back.
Love is real, real is love.
Life has got to be lived - that's all there is to it. At seventy, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that 'this, too, shall pass!'
Life is either a great adventure or nothing.
And every breath I breathe untill the moment I'm deceased. Will be another moment ballin' as a 'G'.
Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.
Some friends leave footprints in your heart
I always read the papers, the political bits.
Ringo is Ringo, that's all there is to it. And he's every bloody bit as warm, unassuming, funny and kind as he seems. He was quite simply the heart of the Beatles
The Negro's problem will not be solved by running away.
I enjoy my work so much that I have to be pulled away from my work into leisure.
Wherever schools can be integrated through the busing method, and where it won't be just a, a terrible inconvenience, I think it ought to be done.
Education is the cornerstone of liberty.
It seems that all revolutions end up with a personality cult - even the Chinese seem to need a father-figure.
As I like to say to the people in Montgomery: "The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is, at bottom, between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.
They told me I didn't understand the assignment, I told them they didn't understand life.
My mother taught me three things: respect, knowledge, search for knowledge. It's an eternal journey.
We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond all senses.
Franklin's illness...gave him strength and courage he had not had before. He had to think out the fundamentals of living and learn the greatest of all lessons - infinite patience and never ending persistence.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
It's very easy for one talking about violence and hatred for the white man to appeal to [Negro from ghetto]. I have never thought of this, but I think this is quite true, that if, even if you talk to them about nonviolence from a tactical point of view, they can't quite see it because they don't even know they're outnumbered.
God has given each normal person a capacity to achieve some end. True, some are endowed with more talent than others, but God has left none of us talentless.
There are a lot of people walking around with long hair now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything.
Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.
Find things that shine and move toward them.
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law . . That would lead to anarchy.
Your best teacher is your last mistake.
Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war, we must spread the propaganda of peace.
History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.
But while so many white Americans are unaware of conditions inside the ghetto, there are very few ghetto dwellers who are unaware of the life outside. The television sets bombard them day by day with the opulence of the larger society.
We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
It's gonna take the man in me to conquer this insanity.
Only in quietness do we possess our own minds and discover the resources of the Inner Life.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.
Truth is found neither in Marxism nor in traditional capitalism. Each represents a partial truth. Historically capitalism failed to see the truth in collective enterprise, and Marxism failed to see the truth in individual enterprise. Nineteenth century capitalism failed to see that life is social and Marxism failed and still fails to see that life is individual and personal. The Kingdom of God is neither the thesis of individual enterprise nor the antithesis of collective enterprise, but a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
One thing is for sure-none of the arts flourishes on censorship and repression. And by this time it should be evident that the American public is capable of doing its own censoring.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets as Raphael painted pictures, sweep streets as Michelangelo carved marble, sweep streets as Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
Nobody should be hitting lotto for 36 million dollars when we got people starving in the streets. That is not idealistic, that's just real. That is just stupid. There's no way Michael Jackson, or whoever should have thousands, millions, billions of dollars and we got people broke with two-three jobs and still can't pay bills on time. There's no way! No way these people should have planes when people don't have houses, apartments, shacks, drawers, pants!!!
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind... The time is always right to do the right thing. Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
