Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But...the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

We are going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. So however difficult it is during this period, however difficult it is to continue to live with the agony and the continued existence of racism, however difficult it is to live amidst the constant hurt, the constant insult and the constant disrespect, I can still sing we shall overcome. We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. No lie can live forever. We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. Truth crushed to earth will rise again. We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.   Yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right.  You shall reap what you sow. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children all over this nation - 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.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

I said to my children, 'I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world – wide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.