Martin Luther King: Quotations
Their questions hit home, and 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.
Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
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.
We will speed the day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing . . . “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.”
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.