A Few Quotes Reflecting
The Wisdom and Great Heart of a Great Man
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
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.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... 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.
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 could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
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.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all of humanity.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.
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 and considered more important than people, the giant
triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being
conquered.
I must continue by faith or it is too great a burden to bear and violence, even
in self-defense, creates more problems than it solves. Only a refusal
to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and
lead us toward a community where men can live together without fear.
Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a
qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our
lives.
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.
True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
The time is always right to do what is right.
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.
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