Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes: 47

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

  A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

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

  A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

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

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

  I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

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

• If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

• Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

  A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

• There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.

  A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

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

• 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.

• Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.

• No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.

• Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

• If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

• I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.

  I Have A Dream

• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

• We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

• Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.

• As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.

• the time is always right to do the right thing

• On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

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

• 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?

• Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.

  I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

• The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

• If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way

• 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.

• Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

• If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

• Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.

  Why We Can't Wait

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

• It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

• Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

• It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.

• Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

• One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong

  Strength to Love

• There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.

  The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.

• I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

  The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words ‘Too Late’.

• Find a voice in a whisper.

  Why We Can't Wait

• Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.

• I said to my children, 'I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be.

• In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

  The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

• If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live