Top 500 Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

52. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

53. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

54. “Without justice, there can be no peace.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

55. “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

56. “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

57. “We must use time creatively.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

58. “To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

59. “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

60. “He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

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

— Martin Luther King Jr.

62. “Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

63. “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

64. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

65. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

66. “No one is free until we are all free.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

67. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

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

— Martin Luther King Jr.

69. “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

70. “If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

71. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

72. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

73. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

74. “Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

75. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

76. “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

77. “You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

78. “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they would die for.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

79. “Life isn’t worth living until you have found something worth dying for.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

80. “You can kill the dreamer, but you can’t kill the dream.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

81. “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

82. “If you’ve got nothing worth dying for, you’ve got nothing worth living for.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

83. “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

84. “If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

85. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

86. “It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

87. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

88. “Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

89. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

90. “Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half of the world.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

91. “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.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

92. “Injustice and corruption will never be transformed by keeping them hidden, but only by bringing them out into the light and confronting them with the power of love.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

93. “Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

94. “Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

95. “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

96. “I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

97. “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

98. “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

99. “We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

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

— Martin Luther King Jr.