1,161 Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come.

You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.

There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up.... The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber.... To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.

Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God.

Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live - men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization - because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.

What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man.