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Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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658 Quotes of Love, Equality, and Justice that Inspire Change

Discover the powerful and inspiring words of Martin Luther King, Jr., a visionary leader who championed love over hate, equality over discrimination, and justice over silence. Explore his famous quotes that continue to resonate and inspire change in the world today.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent leader in the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. As an American Baptist minister and son of an early civil rights activist, King advocated for the advancement of civil rights for people of color through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian faith and the nonviolent actions of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted protests against discriminatory laws, including the famous Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. King played a key role in organizing marches for voting rights, desegregation, and other civil rights causes. He also served as the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech during the 1963 March on Washington.

King's efforts were instrumental in achieving important legislative victories such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Fair Housing Act of 1968. However, his advocacy for equal rights faced fierce opposition from segregationist authorities who responded violently to peaceful protests. King himself was arrested multiple times, while FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover labeled him as a radical threat and launched surveillance operations targeting him. Despite these challenges, King continued to champion nonviolent resistance towards racial inequality.

Tragically, Martin Luther King Jr.'s life was cut short when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. His death not only sparked national mourning but also ignited anger which resulted in riots across various American cities. Recognizing his significant contributions to advancing civil rights and combating racial inequality through peaceful means, King posthumously received numerous honors such as the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. His impact is commemorated annually on Martin Luther King Jr. Day—a federal holiday observed since 1986—with cities renaming streets and dedicated memorials erected in his honor.

✵ 15. January 1929 – 4. April 1968
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Martin Luther King, Jr.: 658   quotes 138   likes

Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes

“But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are usually not realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.

Life

“In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Context: Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Love , Beauty , Star , Distant

“Like any man, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)
Context: Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like any man, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Life , God , People , Mountain

“Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Fools , Forgetting

“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dreams

“The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nature

“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life , Beauty

“it is just as wrong, or even perhaps more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Variant: I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
Context: I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

“Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Motivation , Christ

“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, I Have A Dream (1963)
Source: I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
Context: The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

Justice

“[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

Evil , Personality

“Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny. To a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life

“Violence is not only impractical but immoral.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Three Ways of Meeting Oppression (1958)
Context: Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. 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.

“Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down."

--From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
World

“I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

“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?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Source: Strength to Love

Time , Personality

“I have a dream!
To be free at last!
Free at last!
Free at last.
And if a man has nothing to die for,
Then his life is worth nothing.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life , Dreams

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, (1963)

Freedom , Forgetting

“I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Cobo Center speech (1963)

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Address on Courage (1965)
Context: Deep down in our nonviolent creed is the conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they’re worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right, he’s afraid his home will get burned, or he’s afraid that he will lose his job, or he’s afraid that he will get shot or beat down by state troopers. He may go on and live until he’s 80, but he’s just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. And the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. He died...
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
So we're going to stand up right here amid horses. We're going to stand up right here, in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas! We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!

“The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today…

… some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.
Context: Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we're always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for in all our history there has never been such a monumental dissent during a war, by the American people.

Silence , Betrayal , Time , Night

“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, (1963)

Men , Time , Despair

“We must meet hate with love. We must meet physical force with soul force.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)
Context: We must meet hate with love. We must meet physical force with soul force. There is still a voice crying out through the vista of time, saying: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Then, and only then, can you matriculate into the university of eternal life. That same voice cries out in terms lifted to cosmic proportions: "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword." And history is replete with the bleached bones of nations that failed to follow this command. We must follow nonviolence and love.

Love , Hate , Soul

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, (1963)

People , Freedom

“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind" is of indefinite origin, but has been disputably attributed to various figures, including Mahatma Gandhi. This variant describing it as an "old law" is attributed to King in The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr., (2008) http://books.google.com/books?id=irMxJS36904C&redir_esc=y by Coretta Scott King, Second Edition ; it also occurs in the credits of Spike Lee's movie Do the Right Thing (1989).
Disputed

Law

“We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s
Source: Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott

Justice , Freedom , Night

“Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Usenet post https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian/dx5B6E7Px5Y/BqpR-Wun--IJ ( additional archive http://archive.is/nMSX8), from 15 Jan 2006, with Message-Id: YVuyf.2919$2x4.2240@trndny05 , from "penny", contains the full text of the quote, with NO mention of it being a quote, or MLK, or anything of the sort. That strongly suggests it is the original source, which was later mis-attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Misattributed

Way , Soul , Animals , Personality

“There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions. Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)

Life , People , Truth , Family

“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. However much we may try to romanticize the slogan, there is no separate black path to power and fulfillment that dies not intersect white paths, and there is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share that power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity. We are bound together in a single garment of destiny. The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity, and even the food of America are an amalgam of black and white.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

As quoted in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
1960s

Food , Music , Failure , Freedom

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

People , Freedom

“Now most serious thinkers acknowledge that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Address to Local 815, Teamsters and the Allied Trades Council (1967)

People

“We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

Fight

“You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott
1950s
Variant: You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.

Life , People , Time , Despair

“There is something in this universe that justifies the biblical writer in saying, "You shall reap what you sow." This is a law-abiding universe. This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. If we are to make of this a better world, we've got to go back and rediscover that precious value that we've left behind.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)
Source: Rediscovering Lost Values http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/rediscovering_lost_values/, Sermon delivered at Detroit's Second Baptist Church (28 February 1954)

World , Law , Universe

“An even more basic reason why we are commanded to love is expressed explicitly in Jesus' words, "love your enemies…. that ye may be children of your father which is in heaven." We are called to this difficult task in order to realize a unique relationship with God. We are potential sons of God. Through love that potentiality becomes actuality. We must love our enemies, because only loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of His holiness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Love , God , Children , Beauty

“I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

World

“I think we must honestly face a fact if one gets behind in a race, he must eternally remain behind or run faster than the man in front. You've got to give him the equipment to catch up. Now the fact is that the Negro has had 244 years of slavery in America and working without wages and then he's had a hundred years of segregation and mistreatment in generally. Now, he's faced with a very serious problem and that is that he is required to be as productive as people who have not had these conditions and the only thing that a society can do for individuals who have been deprived of something is to give them a little special treatment. Now you don't put anybody out of a job, but you just make it possible for the individuals who are behind to catch up.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Social Justice and the Emerging New Age" address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University (18 December 1963)
1960s

People , Problem , Thinking

“Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Measures of Man (1959)
1950s

Beauty , Decision , Freedom , Evil

“There is but one way to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation. That is to make its declarations of freedom real; to reach back to the origins of our nation when our message of equality electrified an unfree world, and reaffirm democracy by deeds as bold and daring as the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

World , Way , Democracy , Freedom

“After centuries of relative silence and enforced acceptance, we adapted a technique of exposing the problem by direct and dramatic methods. We had confidence that when we awakened the nation to the immorality and evil of inequality, there would be an upsurge of conscience followed by remedial action. We knew that there were solutions and that the majority of the nation were ready for them. Yet we also knew that the existence of solutions would not automatically operate to alter conditions. We had to organize, not only arguments, but people in the millions for action. Finally we had to be prepared to accept all the consequences involved in dramatizing our grievances in the unique style we had devised.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)

People , Confidence , Problem , Silence

“As I look at drunkard men walking the streets of Montgomery and of other cities every day, I find myself saying, “But by the grace of God, you too would be a drunkard.” As I look at those who have lost balance of themselves and those who are giving their lives to a tragic life of pleasure and throwing away everything they have in riotous living, I find myself saying, “But by the grace of God, I too would be here.” And when you see that point, you cannot be arrogant. But you walk through life with a humility that takes away the self-centeredness that makes you a disintegrated personality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)

Life , Men , God , Pleasure