Quotes about Freedom
On the other hand, in the presence of tyrants and obstinate opposers, use your liberty in their despite, and with the utmost pertinacity, that they too may understand that they are tyrants, and their laws useless for justification, nay that they had no right to establish such laws.
— Martin Luther
When we try to dictate to God the time, place, and manner for him to act, we are testing him. At the same time, we're trying to see if he is really there. When we do this we are putting limits on God and trying to make him do what we want. It's nothing less than trying to deprive God of his divinity. But we must realize that God is free—not subject to any limitations. He must dictate to us the place, manner, and time that he will act.
— Martin Luther
No believing Christian can be coerced beyond Holy Writ
— Martin Luther
True freedom is being free from sin. How
— Martin Luther
But if you command me to believe or to get rid of certain books, I will not obey; for there you are a tyrant and overreach yourself...
— Martin Luther
Nor are we only kings and the freest of all men, but also priests for ever, a dignity far higher than kingship, because by that priesthood we are worthy to appear before God, to pray for others, and to teach one another mutually the things which are of God. For these are the duties of priests, and they cannot possibly be permitted to any unbeliever.
— Martin Luther
Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up.... The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber.... To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Negro's great stumbling block is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice,… who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
God is not merely interested in the freedom of brown men, yellow men, red men and black men. He is interested in the freedom of the whole human race.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.