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Martin Luther King Jr.

457 quotes

“Modern psychology recognizes what Jesus taught centuries ago: Hate divides the personality and love in an amazing and inexorable way unites it.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An even more basic reason why we are commanded to love is expressed explicitly in Jesus' words, "love your enemies....that ye may be children of your father which is in heaven." We are called to this difficult task in order to realize a unique relationship with God. We are potential sons of God. Through love that potentiality becomes actuality. We must love our enemies, because only loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of His holiness.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more that three centuries American Negroes have been frustrated by day and bewilderment by night by unbearable injustice, and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time is cluttered with wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation or mankind, we must follow another way. This does not mean that we abandon our righteous efforts. With every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid this nation of the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love. While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we in the twentieth century hear and follow his words-before it is too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom. They tacitly adjust themselves to oppression and thereby become conditioned to it. In every movement toward freedom some of the oppressed prefer to remain oppressed.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. A few years ago in the slum areas of Atlanta, a Negro guitarist used to sing almost daily: "Been down so long that down don't bother me." This is the type of negative freedom and resignation that often engulfs the life of the oppressed.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors, but against oppression.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to a black congregation in St. Louis, published in "The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King", Harper's magazine (February 1961); quoted by James Baldwin, in "Highroad to Destiny," a chapter in Martin Luther…
“They are honoring a great one in Clemente. I have been watching his career ever since he joined the Pittsburgh club. Roberto should wind up as one of the all-time stars before he is through.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams on July 9, 1961, at Forbes Field, while both waited to speak at the second annual Freedom Jubilee, sponsored by Pittsburgh's Central Baptist Church; as quote…
“We must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Social Justice and the Emerging New Age" address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University (18 December 1963)
“The time is always right to do what's right.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Future of Integration", address in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College (22 October 1964), as quoted in "When MLK came to Oberlin" by Cindy Leise, The Chronicle-Telegram (21 January 2008); he also used a slight variant …
“Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream.... for all of us today, the battle is in our hands... The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions... We are still in for the season of suffering... How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever... our God is marching on.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the steps of the State Capitol Building, Montgomery, Alabama (25 March 1965), as transcribed from a tape recording; reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989), which states that this sp…
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Negro American Labor Council (May 1965), as quoted in From Civil Rights to Human Rights : Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice (2009), by Thomas F. Jackson, p. 230
“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the state convention of the Illinois American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) (7 October 1965), as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the S…
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights – Chicago (25 March 1966), as quoted in Dan Munro, "America's Forgotten Civil Right - Healthcare", Forbes (28 August 2013). See also: Am…
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... 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. (1929–1968) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?…
“Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness — justice.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 109
“Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug, passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Honoring Dr. DuBois", speech at International Cultural Evening at Carnegie Hall, 23 February 1968, published in Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Negro Freedom Movement, compiled in Esther Cooper Jackson (ed.), Fre…
“On the other hand, we must see what peace for the Arabs means in a real sense of security on another level. Peace for the Arabs means the kind of economic security that they so desperately need. These nations, as you know, are part of that third world of hunger, of disease, of illiteracy. I think that as long as these conditions exist there will be tensions, there will be the endless quest to find scapegoats. So there is a need for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, where we lift those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder and bring them into the mainstream of economic security.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 68th Annual Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly for Conservative Judaism, March 25, 1968, less than 2 weeks before his death. Source: Martin Luther King's pro-Israel legacy by Allen B. West on February 15, 2014 at All…
“There are two kinds of laws: man's and God's. A man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God, is a just law. But a man-made code that is inharmonious with the moral law is an unjust law. And an unjust law, as St. Augustine said, is no law at all. Thus a law that is unjust is morally null and void, and must be defied until it is legally null and void as well. Let us not forget, in the memories of 6,000,000 who died, that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal', and that everything the Freedom Fighters in Hungary did was 'illegal.'”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Playboy (January 1965)
“I'm getting sick and tired of people saying that this movement has been infiltrated by Communists. There are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Playboy (January 1965)
“It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people's pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released. So let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Playboy (January 1965)
“What happens in Johannesburg affects Birmingham, however indirectly. We are descendants of the Africans. Our heritage is Africa. We should never seek to break the ties, nor should the Africans.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Playboy (January 1965)
“I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in god. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King sharing his thoughts on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to ban school prayer, ** Interview in Playboy (January 1965)
“If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from a 1968 Playboy magazine interview
“We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement on minimum wage legislation (18 March 1966), as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the South: The Case for a Coalition (January 1986)
“We believe it is imperative that farm laborers, among the most abused and neglected of all American workers, be included at last among those who benefit from the Fair Labor Standards Act. We want coverage extended to include those millions in retail trades, laundries, hospitals and nursing homes, restaurants, hotels, small logging operations and cotton gins who still work for starvation wages.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement on minimum wage legislation (18 March 1966)], as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the South: The Case for a Coalition (January 1986)
“While we are mindful of the shocking fact that less than one-half of all non-white workers are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, we do not speak for Negro workers only. A living wage should be the right of all working Americans, and this is what we wish to urge upon our Congressmen and Senators as they now prepare to deal with this legislation.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement on minimum wage legislation (18 March 1966)], as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the South: The Case for a Coalition (January 1986)
“The backlash is merely the surfacing of prejudices . . . that already existed and . . . are just now starting to open.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Seventh Annual Gandhi Memorial Lecture, Howard Univ., Washington, D.C. (6 November 1966), quoted in What do the election results mean for the move toward marriage equality? by Evan Wolfson …
“Thich Nhat Hanh offers a way out of this nightmare, a solution acceptable to rational leaders. He has traveled the world, counseling statesmen, religious leaders, scholars and writers, and enlisting their support. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter of nomination of Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize (25 January 1967) at Hartford-HWP Archives
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy (1968)
“I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Civil Sphere (2006) by Jeffrey C. Alexander, p. 388
“We must keep moving. If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best way to solve any problem is to remove the cause.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a trite yet urgently true observation that if America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have second-class citizens.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever racial discrimination exists it is a tragic expression of man's spiritual degeneracy and moral bankruptcy. Therefore, it must be removed not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore, no American can afford to be apathetic about the problem of racial justice. It is a problem that meets every man at his front door.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel that this way of non-violence is vital because it is the only way to reestablish the broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride or irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But if physical death is the price that a man must pay to free his children and his white brethren from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing could be more redemptive. This is the type of soul force that I am convinced will triumph over the physical force of the oppressor.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self criticism.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Doors are opening now that were not open in the past, and the great challenge facing minority groups is to be ready to enter these doors as they open. No greater tragedy could befall us at this hour but that of allowing new opportunities to emerge with out the concomitant preparedness to meet them.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must set out to do a good job irrespective of race. We must seek to do our life's work so well that nobody could do it better.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Negroes are almost entirely a working people.... Our needs are identical with labor's needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature, spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable. The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is that which we are here to honor tonight, the Emancipation Proclamation. All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Declaration of Independence proclaimed to a world, organized politically and spiritually around the concept of the inequality of man, that the dignity of human personality was inherent in man as a living being. The Emancipation Proclamation was the offspring of the Declaration of Independence. It was a constructive use of the force of law to uproot a social order which sought to separate liberty from a segment of humanity.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our pride and progress could be unqualified if the story might end here. But history reveals that America has been a schizophrenic personality where these two documents are concerned. On the one hand she has proudly professed the basic principles inherent in both documents. On the other hand she has sadly practiced the antithesis of these principles.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source