Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

The greatness of our God lies in the fact that he is both tough minded and tenderhearted. He has qualities both of austerity and gentleness. The Bible, always clear in stressing both attributes of God, expresses his tough mindedness in his justice and wrath and his tenderheartedness in his love and grace. God has two outstretched arms. One is strong enough to surround us with justice and one is gentle enough to embrace us with grace.

Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strange them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.

Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

The fear and apathy which had for so long cast a shadow on the life of the Negro community were gradually fading before a new spirit of courage and self respect. ... The longings and aspirations of nearly 50,000 people, tired people who had come to see that it is ultimately more honorable to walk the streets in dignity than to ride the buses in humilation.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.

Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.

The southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow, so that when he had no money for food, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than a black man.

They have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

What we were really doing was withdrawing our cooperation from an evil system, rather than merely withdrawing our economic support from the bus company.

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars

All of this tells us that the white backlash is nothing new. White America has been backlashing on the fundamental God-given and human rights of Negro Americans for more than three hundred years. With all of her dazzling achievements and stupendous material strides, America has maintained its strange ambivalence on the question of racial justice.