“All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)
Context: If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable. The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is that which we are here to honor tonight, the Emancipation Proclamation. All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive …" by Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

Martin Luther King, Jr.658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

Related quotes

“Anarchy is not a matter of the future; it is a matter of the present. It is not a matter of making demands; it is a matter of how one lives.”

Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) German anarchist

"Anarchic Thoughts on Anarchism," in Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, p. 87

“How helpless human beings are—in fact, how helpless all beings are! How hopelessly dependent we are upon the past, and how impossible it is to be really original! What the future will be depends upon what the present is, for the future will grow out of, and inherit, the present. What the present is depends upon what the past was, for the present has grown out of, and inherited, the past. And what the past was depends upon a remoter past from which it evolved, and so on. There is no end anywhere of dependence, either forward or backward. Every fact, from an idea to a sun, is a contingent link in an eternal chain.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"The Genealogy of Animals", p. 85
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Physical Kinship

“But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto: A Novel

“Just as mainstream literature shows us how our contemporaries view the present, and historical fiction shows us how they view the past (not, of course, what the present or the past were actually like), so speculative fiction shows us how they view the future. I happen to believe that my contemporaries' view of the past is not very important; but their view of the present is quite definitely important, and their view of the future is vital.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"The Right of Things to Come", presentation for the Science Fiction Research Association (1978), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

“An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice… or terrify, all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today.”

Jim Davis (1945) American cartoonist and creator of Garfield

“Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

1848
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)

“How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

“There's the life you live and the life you leave behind. but what you share with someone else - especially someone you love - that's not just how you bury your past. It's how you write you future.”

Brad Meltzer book The Book of Lies

Source: The Book of Lies

“Time past was nothing, no matter how long. Time ahead was everything, no matter how brief.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 17 (p. 385)

“Life is full of meaning and opportunities for growth. When we are mindful of the beauty and accomplishments of the past, even when the present or future is not exactly what we would like it to be, we will not be disturbed. We will still be excited about the past and appreciative for the present. In this way, the future will be even more auspicious because we create our futures by how we have dealt with the past and how we are dealing with the present. Being always refl ective, mindful, and grateful allows us to never forget how much the Supreme Lord is sending His love in different ways.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Meditation 5 - Die Before Dying
Books, The Beggar, Volume IV: Die Before Dying (Hari-Nama Press, 2005)

Related topics