Martin Luther King cytaty (683 cytatów, strona 19)

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. (ang.)
Źródło: Strength to Love, 1963.

O zachowaniu , O czasie

„Zrób pierwszy krok w wierze. Nie musisz widzieć całej drogi. Po prostu zrób pierwszy krok.”

Martin Luther King

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step. (ang.)

O wierze

„Bunt jest językiem niewysłuchanych.”

Martin Luther King

A riot is the language of the unheard. (ang.)
Źródło: All Labor Has Dignity, red. Michael K. Honey, Beacon Press, Boston 1963, s. 159.

„Marzę, iż pewnego dnia ten naród powstanie, aby żyć wedle prawdziwego znaczenia swego credo: „uważamy za prawdę oczywistą, że wszyscy ludzie zostali stworzeni równymi”.
Marzę, że pewnego dnia na czerwonych wzgórzach Georgii synowie dawnych niewolników i synowie dawnych właścicieli niewolników będą mogli zasiąść razem przy braterskim stole. (…)
Marzę, iż pewnego dnia moich czworo dzieci będzie żyło wśród narodu, w którym ludzi nie osądza się na podstawie koloru ich skóry, ale na podstawie tego, jacy są.”

Martin Luther King

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. (…)
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (ang.)
wygłoszone 28 sierpnia 1963 na wiecu w Waszyngtonie.
Źródło: americanrhetoric.com/speeches http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

O dzieciach , O ludziach , O snach

„Ten kto biernie akceptuje zło, jest za nie tak samo odpowiedzialny jak ten, co je popełnia.”

Martin Luther King

O złu

„Nigdy nie zapominaj, że wszystko, co Hitler uczynił w Niemczech, było legalne.”

Martin Luther King

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. (ang.)

O zapominaniu

„Nauczyliśmy się fruwać niczym ptaki na niebie, pływać jak ryby w morzach, ale nie nauczyliśmy się tej prostej sztuki, by żyć ze sobą jak bracia.”

Martin Luther King

We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. (ang.)
Źródło: Strenght to Love, 1963

O ptakach , O rybach

„Znamy upokorzenia, znamy obraźliwy język, zepchnięto nas w otchłań opresji. I zdecydowaliśmy się podnieść, czyniąc protest naszą jedyną bronią. To, że mamy prawo do protestu, przysparza Ameryce ogromnej chwały.
Nawet jeśli codziennie jesteśmy zatrzymywani, wykorzystywani, deptani, to nigdy nie pozwólmy nikomu sprawić, że upadniemy tak nisko, by zacząć go nienawidzić. Musimy użyć oręża miłości. Musimy współczuć tym, którzy nas nienawidzą, i być dla nich wyrozumiali. Musimy uświadomić sobie, że wielu z nich nauczono, by nas nienawidzili, i że ludzie ci nie są w pełni odpowiedzialni za swoją nienawiść. Lecz w naszym życiu stoimy u progu dnia, jesteśmy zawsze tuż przed świtem.”

Martin Luther King

w 1956, przemawiając w Montgomery w Alabamie.
Źródło: Howard Zinn, Ludowa historia Stanów Zjednoczonych. Od roku 1492 do dziś, tłum. Andrzej Wojtasik, Wyd. Krytyki Politycznej, Warszawa 2016, s. 585.

O nienawiści , O ludziach , O historii

„Jeśli ktokolwiek z was będzie w pobliżu, gdy dożyję swoich dni, wiedzcie, że nie chcę długiego pogrzebu, a jeśli ktoś ma wygłosić mowę, powiedzcie mu, by nie mówił zbyt długo. Powiedzcie mu, by nie wspominał o pokojowej Nagrodzie Nobla - to nie jest istotne. (…) Chciałbym, żeby ktoś wspomniał o dniu, w którym Martin Luther King Jr. próbował oddać swoje życie, służąc innym. Chciałbym, by powiedziano, że tego dnia Martin Luther King Jr. próbował kogoś kochać.”

Martin Luther King

Źródło: Marzenie Luthera Kinga http://www.newsweek.pl/felietony/marzenie-luthera-kinga,13106,1,1.html, newsweek.pl, 31 października 2006

Kochać się , O życiu

To tłumaczenie czeka na recenzję. Czy to jest poprawne?

„Teraz nieuchronnie powstanie pytanie: jak więc pokonać egoizm?”

Martin Luther King

Pytanie , O egoiźmie

To tłumaczenie czeka na recenzję. Czy to jest poprawne?

„Człowiek, który nie ma niczego, za co mógłby umrzeć, nie nadaje się do życia.”

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King: Cytaty po angielsku

“To a degree, we have been attacking the problem by increasing purchasing power through higher wage scales and increased Social Security benefits. But these measures are exercised with restraint and come only as a consequence of organized struggles…Those at the lowest economic level, the poor white, the Negro, the aged, are traditionally unorganized and have little or no ability to force a growth in their consumer potential. They stagnate or become even poorer in relation to the larger society.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

“Your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

“ Paul's Letter to American Christians http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_pauls_letter_to_american_christians/", Sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama (4 November 1956)
1950s, Paul's Letter to American Christians (1956)

“Through our scientific genius we made of the world a neighborhood, but we failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood, and so we’ve ended up with guided missiles and misguided men. And the great challenge is to move out of the mountain of practical materialism and move on to another and higher mountain which recognizes somehow that we must live by and toward the basic ends of life. We must move on to that mountain which says in substance,”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)
Kontekst: We have allowed our civilization to outrun our culture; we have allowed our technology to outdistance our theology and for this reason we find ourselves caught up with many problems. Through our scientific genius we made of the world a neighborhood, but we failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood, and so we’ve ended up with guided missiles and misguided men. And the great challenge is to move out of the mountain of practical materialism and move on to another and higher mountain which recognizes somehow that we must live by and toward the basic ends of life. We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means — airplanes, televisions, electric lights — and lose the end: the soul?"

“Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies?”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

This passage contains some phrases King later used in "Where Do We Go From Here?" (1967) which has a section below.
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Kontekst: Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies-or else? The chain reaction of evil-Hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

“And I'm going on in believing in Him. You'd better know Him, and know His name, and know how to call His name. You may not know philosophy. You may not be able to say with Alfred North Whitehead that He's the Principle of Concretion. You may not be able to say with Hegel and Spinoza that He is the Absolute Whole. You may not be able to say with Plato that He's the Architectonic Good. You may not be able to say with Aristotle that He's the Unmoved Mover. But sometimes you can get poetic about it if you know Him. You begin to know that our brothers and sisters in distant days were right. Because they did know Him as a rock in a weary land, as a shelter in the time of starving, as my water when I'm thirsty, and then my bread in a starving land. And then if you can't even say that, sometimes you may have to say, "He's my everything. He's my sister and my brother. He's my mother and my father." If you believe it and know it, you never need walk in darkness. Don't be a fool. Recognize your dependence on God. As the days become dark and the nights become dreary, realize that there is a God who rules above. And so I’m not worried about tomorrow. I get weary every now and then. The future looks difficult and dim, but I’m not worried about it ultimately because I have faith in God.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

“I am certain that Jesus understood the difficulty inherent in the act of loving one's enemy. He never joined the ranks of those who talk glibly about the easiness of the moral life. He realized that every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God. So when Jesus said "love your enemy," he was not unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

“Now that's what we've got to do in our world today. We've left a lot of precious values behind; we've lost a lot of precious values. And if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in which to live, we've got to go back. We've got to rediscover these precious values that we've left behind.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)
Kontekst: Sometimes, you know, it's necessary to go backward in order to go forward. That's an analogy of life. I remember the other day I was driving out of New York City into Boston, and I stopped off in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to visit some friends. And I went out of New York on a highway that’s known as the Merritt Parkway, it leads into Boston, a very fine parkway. And I stopped in Bridgeport, and after being there for two or three hours I decided to go on to Boston, and I wanted to get back on the Merritt Parkway. And I went out thinking that I was going toward the Merritt Parkway. I started out, and I rode, and I kept riding, and I looked up and I saw a sign saying two miles to a little town that I knew I was to bypass—I wasn't to pass through that particular town. So I thought I was on the wrong road. I stopped and I asked a gentleman on the road which way would I get to the Merritt Parkway. And he said, "The Merritt Parkway is about twelve or fifteen miles back that way. You've got to turn around and go back to the Merritt Parkway; you are out of the way now." In other words, before I could go forward to Boston, I had to go back about twelve or fifteen miles to get to the Merritt Parkway. May it not be that modern man has gotten on the wrong parkway? And if he is to go forward to the city of salvation, he's got to go back and get on the right parkway. [... ] Now that's what we've got to do in our world today. We've left a lot of precious values behind; we've lost a lot of precious values. And if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in which to live, we've got to go back. We've got to rediscover these precious values that we've left behind.

“I decided that perhaps I would like to think of myself as an extremist -- in the light of the spirit which made Jesus an extremist for love. If it sounds as though I am comparing myself to the Savior, let me remind you that all who honor themselves with the claim of being "Christians" should compare themselves to Jesus. Thus I consider myself an extremist for that brotherhood of man which Paul so nobly expressed: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Love is the only force on earth that can be dispensed or received in an extreme manner, without any qualifications, without any harm to the giver or to the receiver.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html
1960s

“Upheaval after upheaval has reminded up that modern man is traveling along the road called hate, in a journey that will bring us to destruction and damnation. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

“The Emancipation Proclamation shattered in one blow the slave system, undermining the foundations of the economy of the rebellious South; and guaranteed that no slave-holding class, if permitted to exist in defeat, could prepare a new and deadlier war after resuscitation. The Proclamation opened the door to self-liberation by the Negro upon which he immediately acted by deserting the plantations in the South and joining the Union armies in the North.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

“The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not "acceptable", does not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of "rejection" may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind and emotional security.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

“Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.
Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on the statute books of the South and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the hooded perpetrators of violence.
Give us the ballot, and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.
Give us the ballot, and we will fill our legislative halls with men of goodwill and send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign a "Southern Manifesto" because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice.
Give us the ballot, and we will place judges on the benches of the south who will do justly and love mercy, and we will place at the head of the southern states governors who have felt not only the tang of the human, but the glow of the Divine.
Give us the ballot, and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May seventeenth, 1954.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)

“We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers […] I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy" […] Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the — for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rev. King was paraphrasing the Book of Proverbs 31:8-10 when referring to "speak out for the voiceless" and the rights of people who need justice.
1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)

“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

As quoted by George Sweeting (senior pastor at Moody Church and former President of the Moody Bible Institute), in Talking it over http://books.google.es/books?id=3U47r8goSvwC&q=%22To+be+a+Christian+without+prayer+is+no+more+possible+than+to+be+alive+without+breathing%22&dq=%22To+be+a+Christian+without+prayer+is+no+more+possible+than+to+be+alive+without+breathing%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=zJ47UubGKKasyAHvuoDoCA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwATgK (Sep. 1, 1979), p. 88. and The Basics of the Christian Life (Aug 1, 1983), p. 83. No earlier sources are pointed out.
Disputed

“The best way to solve any problem is to remove the cause.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)

“Tolstoy, the Russian writer, said in War and Peace: “I cannot conceive of a man not being free unless he is dead.” While this statement sounds a bit exaggerated, it gets at a basic truth. What Tolstoy is saying in substance is that the absence of freedom is the presence of death. Any nation or government that deprives an individual of freedom is in that moment committing an act of moral and spiritual murder. Any individual who is not concerned about his freedom commits an act of moral and spiritual suicide.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

[http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol5/17July1959_AddressattheFiftiethAnnualNAACPConvention.pdf Address at the Fiftieth Annual NAACP Convention (17 July 1959)
1950s

“While we are mindful of the shocking fact that less than one-half of all non-white workers are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, we do not speak for Negro workers only. A living wage should be the right of all working Americans, and this is what we wish to urge upon our Congressmen and Senators as they now prepare to deal with this legislation.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Statement on minimum wage legislation (18 March 1966)], as quoted in Now Is the Time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Labor in the South: The Case for a Coalition (January 1986)
1960s

“I’m more convinced than ever before that violence can not solve the problems of the world. Violence is both impractical and immoral. This is why I’ve tried in my little way to teach it in our struggle for racial justice that I’ve come to see and I believe with all my heart that we can not make the great moral contribution to our nation that we should make, and we can not win the battle for justice if we stoop to the point of using violence in our struggle.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)

“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.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

As quoted in The Civil Sphere (2006) by Jeffrey C. Alexander, p. 388
1960s

“A Christian movement in an age of revolution cannot allow itself to be limited by geographic boundaries. We must be as concerned about the poor in India as we are about the poor of Indiana.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1960s, A Christian Movement in a Revolutionary Age (1965)

“In the past ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United States have given living testimony to the moral power and efficacy of nonviolence. By the thousands, faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white, have temporarily left the ivory towers of learning for the barricades of bias. Their courageous and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

“I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

“Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)

“We are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until "justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream."”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/mia_mass_meeting_at_holt_street_baptist_church/. "Justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream" is a quotation of Amos 5:24 in the Bible.
1950s