Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.was an American Baptist minister and activist who was a leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLeader
Date of Birth15 January 1929
CountryUnited States of America
children humble past
Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live - men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization - because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.
strong humble men
The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at it's best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.
life courage peace
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.
party betrayed faces
We must face the appalling fact that we have been betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
beethoven composed earth excellence great heaven hosts job lived man pause shakespeare streets sweep wrote
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo 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 streetsweeper who did his job well.
action american-leader bring creators direct engage hidden merely surface tension
We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
accepts arouse breaks conscience expressing highest individual law legal order penalty reality respect submit tells willingly
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
cuts history man weapon
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.
involving principle
The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
available convinced human method oppressed people potent resistance since weapon
Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.
death fit man
If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
concerned conditions cripple damn men religion slums social souls strangle
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.
art complex ends expressed external internal lives man means realm religion
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.
carving loudly prophetic wars
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.