Quotes By Martin Luther King Jr

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.

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

The church, itself, will stand under the judgement of God.

There are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize - I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to - segregation and discrimination.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love.

Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.

Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative force, so beautifully exemplified in the life of our Christ, is the most potent instrument available in mankind's quest for peace and security.

One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.

The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing.

May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.

We must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy.

Now that the mistake of the past has been made, I think that the opportunity of the future is to really go out and to transform American society, and where else is there a better place than in the institution that should serve as the moral guardian of the community.

Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present.

I cannot express what I felt, but I knew at that moment that God's presence had never left me, that He had been with me there in solitary.

I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.