Quotes By Martin Luther King Jr.

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

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.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

We have guided missiles and misguided men.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

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.

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.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

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

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.

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?"

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.