1,161 Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

I will always remember my delight when Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - an unlettered woman of unusual intelligence - told how an operator demanded that she get off the bus after paying her fare and board it again by the back door, and then drove away before she could get there. She turned to Judge Carter and said: "When they count the money, they do not know Negro money from white money.

Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.

Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.

[E]very human life is a reflection of divinity, and... every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man.

I would be misleading you if I made you feel that we could win a violent campaign. It's impractical even to think about it. The minute we start, we will end up getting many more people killed unnecessarily. Now, I'm ready to die myself. Many other committed people are ready to die. If you believe in something firmly, if you believe in it truly, if you believe it in your heart, you are willing to die for it, but I'm not going to advocate a method that brings about unnecessary death.

Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace.

As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.