Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have a dream... I have a dream today... And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'
Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.
Personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions.
The only ones who make things change are fanatics. If you're not a fanatic around here, you can't cut it.
There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.
We must face the appalling fact that we have been betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
People with good intentions but limited understanding are more dangerous than people with total ill will.
Something should remind us once more that the great things in this universe are things that we never see.
We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.
Just as it is the duty of all men to obey just laws, so it is the duty of all men to disobey unjust laws.
The question is no longer between violence and non-violence it is between non-violence and non-existence.
Be an artist at whatever you do. Even if you are a street sweeper, be the Michelangelo of street sweepers.
Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people.
Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
Nonviolence is really tough. You don't practice nonviolence at conferences; you practice it on picket-lines.
It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.
We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
We are organizers at heart. Most of us in the movement take great pride in being able to put things together.
If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
We can walk through the darkest night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for the good.
Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.
When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom.
So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition.
In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do.
That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.
I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.
I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.
Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.
I have DECIDED to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. GOD is love.
I would suffer all the humiliation, all the torture, the absolute ostracism and even death, to prevent violence
The idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence.
We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification.
If we are full of hatred, we can't really do our work. Hatred saps all that strength and energy we need to plan.
If you win non-violently, then you have a double victory, you have not only won your fight, but you remain free.
We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war.