Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The time is always right to do what is right.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
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.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
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.
Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth." When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?"
Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.
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 recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and we must put our own house in order.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.
Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breath.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
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.
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.
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
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 refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
