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Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Total quotes: 24
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Tagged: Love, decision, Choosing Love
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., A quote by Martin Luther King Jr.
Tagged: Hope, Peace, humanity, strength
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King Jr. delivers speech, 1965
Tagged: Silence, Ignoring, Wasting life, Speak Up, Fight for what you believe
“No person has the right to rain on your dreams.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Words of Wisdom: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tagged: Dreams, Courage, Encouragement
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., The Quest for Peace and Justice
Tagged: Non-Violence, Against Violence
“The command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Loving Your Enemies
Tagged: Love Your Enemy, golden rule, Law of Reciprocity, Treat Others as You Want To Be Treated
“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings
Tagged: Life, Words, Meanings, heart, Symbols, Moments, Understanding, Language, Feelings
“Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problems: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.’”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (King Legacy)
Tagged: Justice, Violence, Answers, Society, issues, Problems, racism, Inequality
“[We will] meet physical force with soul forces. And we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer... and win you in the process.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., A Double Victory
Tagged: Opposites
“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., Strength to Love
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tagged: True Love, Love, Darkness, Hate, Light, Inspirational
“I love you. I would rather die than hate you.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion
Tagged: strategy, dramatic
“The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., I Have A Dream
Tagged: Race relations
“War is not the answer.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Tagged: Non-Violence, Against War
“We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Loving Your Enemies
Tagged: Love Your Enemy, golden rule, Law of Reciprocity, Treat Others as You Want To Be Treated
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., 15 of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Most Inspiring Motivational Quotes
Tagged: Don't Give Up, Disappointment, Hope, Hopeful, The future
“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., Why We Can't Wait
Tagged: Philosophy, Identity & Self
“The rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., The Quest for Peace and Justice
Tagged: Fate, Destiny, Connectionism, Part and Parcel, We Are All One, Rich and Poor, Wealth Gap
“We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., The Quest for Peace and Justice
Tagged: Love Trumps Hate
“Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the canceling of a debt.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Loving Your Enemies
Tagged: Forgivenes, I'm Sorry
“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., I Have A Dream
Tagged: Suffering, Pain, Through The Storm
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
— Martin Luther King Jr., I Have A Dream
Tagged: Freedom
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. 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., Barratt Junior High School Speech (1967)
Tagged: Speech, Motivational Sports, Motivational
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., I Have A Dream
Tagged: Act Now, Racism In America
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