Best Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. 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. I have a dream today.

In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

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

The time is always right to do what is right.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation when they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

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.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate.

Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

It is my hope that as the Negro plunges deeper into the quest for freedom and justice he will plunge even deeper into the philosophy of non-violence. The Negro all over the South must come to the point that he can say to his white brother: We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we will not obey your evil laws. We will soon wear you down by pure capacity to suffer.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

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 down together at the table of brotherhood.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal

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

I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.

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.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.

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

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

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: -- we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But Im not concerned about that now. I just want to do Gods will. And Hes allowed me to go up to the mountain. And Ive looked over, and Ive 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.

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

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.

We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.

The more there are riots, the more repressive actin will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.

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

I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.

Free at last, free at lastThank God almightyWe are free at last