Martin Luther King Jr.
American Baptist minister, civil rights leader, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Drawing on the nonviolent satyagraha of Gandhi, the social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch, and the Black church tradition, King led the Montgomery bus boycott, the Birmingham campaign, and the March on Washington — and articulated, in speeches and books, a vision of the "beloved community" grounded in agape love and economic justice. Assassinated in Memphis in 1968 at the age of 39, his words remain a foundational text of American moral imagination.
104
quotes in library
Quotes by Martin Luther King Jr.
104 quotes“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
justiceLetter from Birmingham Jail
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
voiceSpeeches and Letters
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
actionWhere Do We Go from Here
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
loveWhere Do We Go from Here
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding.”
nonviolenceStride Toward Freedom
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
friendshipSpeeches and Letters
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
evilStrength to Love
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
loveStrength to Love
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge.”
characterStrength to Love
“Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
freedomI Have a Dream
“I've been to the mountaintop. I've seen the promised land.”
visionI've Been to the Mountaintop
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'”
serviceStrength to Love
“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.”
livingStrength to Love
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
hopeWhere Do We Go from Here
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a constant attitude.”
forgivenessStrength to Love
“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.”
conscienceWhere Do We Go from Here
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension. It is the presence of justice.”
peaceStride Toward Freedom
“Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”
meansStrength to Love
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
loveStrength to Love
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