Martin Luther King Quotes

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

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

~ Martin Luther King

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

~ Martin Luther King

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

~ Martin Luther King

Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.

~ Martin Luther King

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

~ Martin Luther King

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.

~ Martin Luther King

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

~ Martin Luther King

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

~ Martin Luther King

We must use time creatively.

~ Martin Luther King

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

~ Martin Luther King

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

~ Martin Luther King

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

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

~ Martin Luther King

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

~ Martin Luther King

I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

~ Martin Luther King

I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

~ Martin Luther King

Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.

~ Martin Luther King

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

~ Martin Luther King

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

~ Martin Luther King

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

~ Martin Luther King

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

~ Martin Luther King

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

~ Martin Luther King

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

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

~ Martin Luther King

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

~ Martin Luther King

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

~ Martin Luther King

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

~ Martin Luther King

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.

~ Martin Luther King

Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

~ Martin Luther King

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

~ Martin Luther King

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

~ Martin Luther King

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed.

~ Martin Luther King

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

~ Martin Luther King