WIST

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood; 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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“I Have a Dream” speech, Washington, DC (1963)

Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” , Christian Century (13 Apr 1960)
Full text.

Any church that violates the “whosoever will, let him come” doctrine is a dead, cold church, and nothing but a little social club with a thin veneer of religiosity.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“The Drum Major Instinct,” sermon, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta (4 Feb 1968)

As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(1956)

One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and therefore, brothers.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

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

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

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

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

True peace is not merely the absence of tension; It is the presence of justice.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

Freedom is not free.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

In the end, it’s not the words of our enemies we will remember, but the silence of our friends.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

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

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

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

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
(Attributed)
Variant: "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love (1963)

In a sense, every day is judgment day, and we, through our deeds and words, our silence and speech, are constantly writing in the Book of Life.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love, 9.2 (1963)

Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love, ch. 2 (introduction) (1963)

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

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love, ch. 4 (1963)

[A majority of people] are not theoretical atheists; they are practical atheists. They do not deny the existence of God with their lips, but they are continually denying his existence with their lives.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love, ch. 9 (1963)

Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul-saving music of eternity?

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love, II (1963)

Every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. Each can spell either salvation or doom.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Stride Toward Freedom, ch. 11 (1958)

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Wall Street Journal (13 Nov 1962)

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Where Do We Go from Here>, 3.2 (1967)

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize (10 Dec 64)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr. 1963)

One who breaks an unjust 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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from Birmingham Jail (1964)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from the Birmingham Jail

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from the Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963)

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from the Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963)

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 Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from the Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963)
Full text.

Actually, 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. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from the Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963)
Full text

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Letter from the Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963)

Full text.

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden (1964)

Vanity asks the question — is it popular? Conscience asks the question — is it right?

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Sermon, Passion Sunday, National Cathedral, Washington, DC (31 Mar 1968)

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington (28 Aug 1963)

If a man hasn’t discovered something that he would die for, he isn’t fit to live.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Speech in Detroit (23-Jun-1963)

Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Speech, Washington (26 Mar 1964)