Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.
A fifth point concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremist will we be.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The problem with hatred and violence is that they intensity the fears of the white majority, and leave them less ashamed of their prejudices toward Negroes.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The majority of the Negroes who took part in the year-long boycott of Montgomery's buses were poor and untutored; but they understood the essence of the Montgomery movement; one elderly woman summed it up for the rest. When asked after several weeks of walking whether she was tired, she answered: "My feet is tired, but my soul is at rest."
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, and to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
One who breaks an unjust 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 law.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.