Tao Te Ching
Martin Luther King Jr.
1929 – 1968 CE
Leading world influence for equality, peace, non-violence, and poverty alleviation
(1929–1968)
Baptist minister, one the the 20th century’s most admired people, “the conscience of his generation,” most famous civil rights leader, and known for one of history’s most influential speeches; Martin Luther King became one of the world’s most effective forces for equality, peace, and poverty alleviation. An enemy of J. Edgar Hoover, investigated by the FBI, and assassinated; his life proved the power and unstoppability of a good and pure heart. Practicing Gandhian nonviolence and Thoreauvian civil disobedience, he won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, 50 honorary university degrees; and today, a national holiday and hundreds of US streets are named in his honor.
Lineages
American (USA) Anarchist Black Christian Politicians
Eras
Generations
Post War Generation (1928 – 1945 CE)Unlisted Sources
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. (36 quotes)
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”
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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
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“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
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“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
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“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?’”
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“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.”
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“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
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“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
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“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.”
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“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
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“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
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“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.”
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“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
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“It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of white society.”
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“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
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“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan”
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“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.”
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“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
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“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
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“A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.”
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“We are challenged to develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one.”
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“Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace.”
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“Don’t complain of terrible circumstances… they are the sources of celebrated trophies.”
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“No President can be great, or even fit for office, if he attempts to accommodate to injustice to maintain his political balance... it was this same attitude that made it possible for Lincoln to speak a kind word about the South during the Civil War when feeling was most bitter. Asked by a shocked bystander how he could do this, Lincoln said, 'Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?' This is the power of redemptive love.”
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“Gandhi not only spoke against the caste system he acted against it. He took 'untouchables' by the hand and led them into the temples from which they had been excluded. To equal that, President Eisenhower would have taken a Negro child by the hand and led her into Central High School in Little Rock.”
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“We must never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was 'legal'... It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal.”
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“We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did was 'illegal.' It was 'illegal' to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers.”
from Letter from a Birmingham Jail
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“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
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“Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”
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Quotes about Martin Luther King Jr. (2 quotes)
“He was not perfect. He had his complexities. He was not the only one who suffered in a pre-civil rights America, and there were plenty of other charismatic speakers. But Martin Luther King Jr. had a gift. He knew how to inspire people.”
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“From Emerson to Thoreau to Gandhi to MLK to Mandela. One idea in many forms, passed along from one giant to another. Perhaps the greatest relay race in the history of inspiration...It's the lineage of an idea that has evolved and been adapted for two centuries.”
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