List of the main phrases of Martin Luther King

Then you will be able to consult a complete list with the main Martin Luther King quotes, those that have marked an entire generation that fought for freedom and the rights that had been denied to date.

Meet Martin Luther King

But to better understand your phrases, it is important meet Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther King was born in 1929 in Memphis, and became pastor of the Baptist Church where he began the African-American civil rights movement.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his fight against racial discrimination through the use of non-violent means.

However, from the beginning he also protested against poverty in general as well as led numerous protests against the Vietnam War, eventually focusing primarily on this second task, until April 4, 1968 was murdered in Memphis while on his way to a dinner he had organized with friends.

However, the movement had already started, and even today its influence and phrases that fuel the struggle in many aspects of daily life continue to endure.

List with the best phrases of Martin Luther King

And without further delay on our part, we will show you below the best phrases of Martin Luther King.

• "100 years later, the Negro continues to live on an island of poverty surrounded by a sea of ​​material prosperity."
• "Despite our efforts, we have not had earth-shaking victories, but neither have we been defeated."
• "In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of friends."
• "Love your enemies."
• "I am looking for the day when people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
• "Each man must decide whether to walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."
• ”Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
• "Dig a tunnel of hope through a dark mountain of hopelessness."
• "I believe that the unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the last word in reality.
• Whatever your life's work, do it right. A man must do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could not do better. "
• "When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of spirit, which stands in stark contrast to his scientific and technological abundance."
• When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you're wrong, you can't be too conservative. "
• "From my Christian formation I have obtained my ideals and from Gandhi the technique of action."
• "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
• "We must accept the reality that: power without love is abusive and oppressive, while love without power is anemic and too permissive."
• "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
• "We must build dams of courage to contain the onslaught of fear."
• ”We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who lacks the power to forgive is devoid of the ability to love. There is something good in the worst of us and something bad in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less likely to hate our enemies.
• "We must use time creatively."
• "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."
• "The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."
• "The fact is, work that improves the condition of humanity, work that extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to ensure life."
• "The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict."
• "The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the middle of an immense ocean of material prosperity."
• "Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude."
• "The principle of self-defense, even with weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, not even by Gandhi."
• "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable ... Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle."
• "The one who passively accepts violence is as involved in it as the one who helps to perpetuate it. He who accepts evil without protesting is cooperating with it.
• "At the center of non-violence is the principle of love."
• "Instead of honoring the covenant of our ancestors, blacks have been paid with a bad check, a check that has produced the notice of" insufficient funds. "
• "In other words, its entire structure must be changed."
• "It is time to ascend from the darkness of segregation to the subtle step of racial justice."
• "It is time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
• "It is sad to see how 100 years later the black is still not free."
• "Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort, from the inner city of poverty and despair are crushed by the blows of the forces of justice."
• "Keep me from violence, whether it is expressed through the tongue, the fist or the heart."
• "I have decided to continue with love. Hate is too heavy a burden to bear. "
• ”We have learned to fly like birds, to swim like fish; but we have not learned the simple art of living as brothers. "
• "We had our government write new laws to abolish the injustices that weighed down on us."
• "John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be made for around twenty billion dollars a year. And I tell you today that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust and evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend thousands of dollars. millions of dollars to put God's children on their own feet here on earth. "
• "The ancient law of" an eye for an eye "leaves everyone blind. The time to do the right thing is always right. "
• "The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."
• The hope for a safe and livable world rests with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
• "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the entire staircase."
• ”The function of education is to teach to think intensely and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education. "
• "People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear because they don't know each other; they are not known because they have not been communicated.
• "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of bad people, but the atrocious silence of good people."
• "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere."
• "Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dams that block the flow of social progress."
• "The freedom of our white brothers is inexorably linked to our freedom."
• "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be sued by the oppressed. "
• "The greatest tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty of bad people, but the silence of good people."
• "The best way to solve any problem is to eliminate its cause."
• "Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon that cuts without hurting and ennobles the man who handles it. It is a sword that heals. "
• "Non-violence means not only avoiding external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit. Not only do you refuse to shoot a man, you also refuse to hate him. "
• ”Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do it. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. "
• "Peace is not just a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we reach that goal."
• ”The most persistent and urgent question in life is, what are you doing for others? "
• "The question is not whether we are going to be extremists, but what kinds of extremists we will be ... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
• "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he is in times of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy."

• "The areas most affected by my efforts have been Chicago and Cleveland."
• "Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."
• "I tell you today brothers, friends, despite the fact that we face not only the difficulties of today but also those of tomorrow; that I still have a dream. "
• "The time comes when silence is treason."
• What affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can't be what I should be until you are what you should be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. "
• "The means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek."
• "Those who do not seek happiness are more likely to find it, because those who seek it forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others."
• "The winds of revolt will continue to stir our nation until the bright days of justice emerge."
• "Nothing in the whole world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and stupid conscience."
• ”Nothing is forgotten more slowly than an offense; and nothing faster than a favor. "
• "Nobody really knows why they are alive until they know why they would die."
• "This is not the time to fall into the slumber of conformism, today is the day we must raise a true promise towards democracy."
• "It is not enough to say that there is no need to wage war. You have to love peace and sacrifice for it. "
• "I am not interested in power for its own sake, I am interested in power that is moral, right and good."
• "We will no longer spend our money where we cannot hope to have substantial jobs."
• "We don't make history. We are made by history. "
• "There is nothing wrong with holding power as long as it is used fairly."
• "No matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty."
• "It does not matter how long you live but how you live, if you live well and die young, you may have contributed more than a person up to eighty years worried only about himself"
• "We must not focus only on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace."
• "Let's not build a home in the valley of despair."
• "Don't let any human being bring you low enough to hate him."
• "We cannot be satisfied as long as our children's adult dreams are emasculated by" white only "signals."
• "We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York feels he has nothing to vote for."
• "There can be no great disappointment where there is no deep love."
• "We refuse to accept that the bank of justice is bankrupt."
• "We refuse to believe that there are no funds in this nation's chest of opportunity."
• "We satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
• "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."
• ”Our scientific power has surpassed our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and wrong men. "
• "Never fall into the temptation of bitterness."
• "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
• "Let us never allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence."
• "We can never be satisfied as long as blacks are victims of brutal abuse by the police."
• ”Rarely do we meet men who willingly engage in sound thinking. There is an almost universal search for answers and half-solutions. Nothing hurts some people more than having to think. "
• "We may all have come in different boats, but we are all in the same boat now."
• "I want to be the white man's brother, not his stepbrother."
• "I would like to suffer all the humiliations, all the torture, absolute ostracism and even death, to prevent violence."
• "If I help a single person to have hope, I will not have lived in vain."
• "If physical death is the price I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from permanent spirit death, then nothing can be more redemptive."
• "If you can not fly, run; If you can not run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep going. "
• "If you respect my dollar, you must respect my person."
• "If I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I, still today, would plant a tree."
• "If a man has not discovered something that he would live for, he is not fit to live."
• "If we are to move forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values ​​- that all reality depends on moral foundations and that all reality is in spiritual control."
• "The time to do the right thing is always right."
• "Only in the dark can you see the stars."
• "I maintain that whoever breaks a law because his conscience considers it unjust, and voluntarily accepts a prison sentence, in order to raise social conscience against that injustice, actually shows a superior respect for the law.
• "I dream that one day, the state of Alabama whose governor spits out phrases of interposition between the races and annulment of the blacks, will become a place where black boys and girls can join hands with those of white boys and girls. walk together, as brothers and sisters. "
• "We have to speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we have to speak."
• "I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will shake hands with little white boys and girls."
• "I have a dream that my four 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."
• ”Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve… You just have to have a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. "
• "All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem."
• "All work that exalts humanity has dignity and importance and must be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
• "We should all go out and say" America, you must be born again! " "
• "Your truth will increase as you know how to listen to the truth of others"
• "A delayed right is a denied right."
• "A great challenge now will be to know how to organize all our power within the country's political forces."
• "An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all mankind."
• "A riot is the language of the unheard."
• "A true leader is not a consensus seeker, but a consensus shaper."
• "A lie cannot live."
• "A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men buys its own spiritual death in installments."
• "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on social betterment programs is approaching spiritual doom."
• "A series of positive psychological changes will inevitably result in widespread economic security."
• "Again and again we must overcome the weight of physical force with spiritual force."
• "One of the biggest problems in our society is that the concept of love and power have always been seen as opposites."
• "Seeing is not always believing."
• And so I tell you today, my friends, that you will be able to speak with the languages ​​of men and of angels; they may have the eloquence of articulate speech; but if you don't have love, it doesn't mean anything. "

With these phrases we finish the list through which you can better understand the struggle of this man who lost his life to defend his ideals, which were focused on equality, the fight against injustice and the eradication of hunger.