On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' And Vanity comes along and asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But Conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?'
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.
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.
If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
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.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
To other countries, I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.
Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.
Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.
If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.
Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
A right delayed is a right denied.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
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.
