Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Profession : Leader

Birth : January 15, 1929

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.