Martin Luther King, Jr.: Injustice Anywhere Is a Threat To Justice Everywhere

In these times where indifference to human suffering and the demonetization and dehumanization of others has become normalized, I am moved again and again to give voice to the antidotes to human ignorance, brutality, and all the many faces of trauma and violence. I find in these quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. reminders of what I may struggle with consistently remembering — and certainly what I seek each day, and as best as I can, to radiate out into the world. 

It has also long been my belief that the ripples of the strong and sacred heart energy in us all is what will awaken and heal our world. 

May each of us increasingly heal and awaken, doing our part, whatever that may be, to join hands and hearts with the radical revolution in caring that is struggling to be birthed within our own hearts and spread across this beautiful troubled world we share. — Molly

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. 

Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude. 

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.  

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: My own Government, I can not be Silent. 

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

I suspect that we are now experiencing the coming to the surface of a triple prong sickness that has been lurking within our body politic from its very beginning. That is the sickness of racism, excessive materialism and militarism. Not only is this our nation’s dilemma it is the plague of western civilization.  

 

We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together. And you can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other. 

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

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.

The time is always right to do what is right.

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

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

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

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other.

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.

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

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. 

We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.   

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. 

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.

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

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. 

   — Martin Luther King, Jr.