I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality ... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. Martin Luther King, Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King, Atlanta 1947
In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies ... but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, attributed
It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends $500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only $53 annually on the victims of poverty. Martin Luther King
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important. Martin Luther King
I will die standing up for the freedom of my people. Martin Luther King
I would hope that the FBI would come out and say something that I think is much more significant. And that is it is amazing that so few Negroes have turned to communism in the light of their desperate plight. I think it is one of the most amazing developments of the twentieth-century how loyal the Negro has remained to America despite his long night of oppression and discrimination. Martin Luther King, interview Dan Rather
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. Martin Luther King
Less than a century ago the laborer had no rights, little or no respect, and led a life which was socially submerged and barren ... American industry organized misery into sweatshops and proclaimed the right of capital to act without restraints and without conscience. The inspiring answer to this intolerable and dehumanizing existence was economic organization through trade unions. The worker became determined not to wait for charitable impulses to grow in his employer. He constructed the means by which fairer sharing of the fruits of his toil had to be given to him or the wheels of industry. Martin Luther King
Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. 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. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, ‘love your enemies’, he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. 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 we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Martin Luther King
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state, sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I ... have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day ... When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that 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 in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ Martin Luther King, 28th August 1963
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated. Martin Luther King
Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word used in psychology – it is the word maladjusted. It is the ringing cry of modern child-psychology – maladjusted. Of course we all want to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But as I move to my conclusion I would like to say to you today in a very honest manner that there are some things in our society and some things in our world for which I am proud to be maladjusted. And I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted to these things. Martin Luther King, televised address
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness. Martin Luther King
No-one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for. Martin Luther King
Nothing in this world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King
Now we are dealing with issues that cannot be solved without the nation spending billions of dollars and undergoing a radical redistribution of economic power. Martin Luther King
Now the consequences, the disruptive effects of such self-centeredness, such egocentric desires, are tragic. And we see these every day. At first, it leads to frustration and disillusionment and unhappiness at many points. For usually when people are self-centered, they are self-centered because they are seeking attention, they want to be admired and this is the way they set out to do it. But in the process, because of their self-centeredness, they are not admired; they are mawkish and people don’t want to be bothered with them. And so the very thing they seek, they never get. And they end up frustrated and unhappy and disillusioned. Martin Luther King
Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane. Martin Luther King, Chicago March 1966
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
Racial segregation must be seen for what it is – and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity ... Segregation is evil because it relegates persons to the status of things ... And segregation is evil because it stigmatizes the segregated as an untouchable in a caste system. We’ve been in the mountain of segregation long enough and it is time for all men of goodwill to say now, We are through with segregation now, henceforth, and forever more. Martin Luther King
The absence of freedom is the presence of death. Any nation or government that deprives an individual of freedom is in that moment committing an act of moral and spiritual murder. Any individual who is not concerned about his freedom commits an act of moral and spiritual suicide. Martin Luther King, address Fiftieth Annual NAACP convention 17th July 1959
The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken or we will be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Martin Luther King
The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love ... We must in strength and humility meet hate with love. Martin Luther King
The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. Martin Luther King
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government. Martin Luther King, cited King in the Wilderness, Sky Atlantic 2018
The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man's soul. We haven’t learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood. Martin Luther King, Rediscovering Lost Values
The hope of a secure and liveable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. Martin Luther King
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win, and their participants know it. Martin Luther King
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