“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.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“I Have a Dream”
“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
“The time is always right to do the right thing.”
“There is no gain without struggle.”
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
“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.”
“Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”
“No person has the right to rain on your dreams.”
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
“Hate destroys the hater.”
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
“You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
“Let’s build bridges, not walls.”
“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.”
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”
“Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
“A right delayed is a right denied.”
“Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.”
“Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”
“Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other 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.”
“It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”
“Be a thermostat not a thermometer.”
“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.”
“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
“That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
“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 nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“We must use time creatively.”
“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well.”
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
“Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”
“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”
“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
“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.”
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
“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.”
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
“When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.”
“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they would die for.”
“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”
“We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.”
“I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”
“I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I could be; I may not be the man I truly can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was.”
“A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.”
“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.”
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”
“The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die.”
“If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”
“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.”
“Without justice, there can be no peace.”
“Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent.”
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets as Raphael painted pictures, sweep streets as Michelangelo carved marble, sweep streets as Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.”
“The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
“You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.”
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
“Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
“I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
“A lie cannot live.”
“We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.”
“One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”
“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it an never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
“One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong.”
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
“Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.”
“We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”
“What seems so necessary today may not even be desirable tomorrow.”
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”
“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.”
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