Quotes By Martin Luther King Jr.

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

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

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

We must use time creatively.

We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.

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?"

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-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.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

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.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

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

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.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

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 together at the table of brotherhood.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

A right delayed is a right denied.

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.

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.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

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