“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action; for they ask and write me, "So what about Vietnam?"”

They ask if our nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence I cannot be silent.
1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

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 "As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles…" 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

Wolfgang Pauli photo

“When I was young, I thought I was the best formalist of my time. I thought I was a revolutionary. When the big problems would come, I would solve them and write about them. The big problems came and passed by, others solved them and wrote about them. I was a classicist and not a revolutionary.”

Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner

As quoted in Faust in Copenhagen (2007) by Gino Segrè, p. 130.5, which cites The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (1982) by Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, vol 1 of 4, p. xxiv, and Inward Bound (1986) by Abraham Pais, p. 186

Theodor W. Adorno photo

“When I made my theoretical model, I could not have guessed that people would try to realise it with Molotov cocktails.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

As quoted in The Dialectical Imagination : A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research (1973) by M Jay, p. 279.

Jerzy Vetulani photo

“Professor writes about the brain in a very approachable way, and from what he writes, the conviction that man is free is born. The message of his books influenced, among others, the emergence of several of my painting cycles. For me he is an authority, and I do not have many of them.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Iwona Siwek-Front, painter, friend of Vetulani in an interview Artystka, to jak glebogryzarka http://www.bloge12.pl/artystka-to-jak-glebogryzarka/ (in Polish), Mazowiecki Instytut Kultury, 2014.

Maddox photo
Nathan Bedford Forrest photo
Joyce Carol Oates photo
Philip Roth photo
Vida Guerra photo
Priti Patel photo

“While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, my actions also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated. I offer a fulsome apology to you and to the government for what has happened and offer my resignation.”

Priti Patel (1972) British politician

Said in her resignation letter to Theresa May in November 2017 after she had unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials while Secretary of State for International Development. Priti Patel quits cabinet over Israel meetings row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41923007 (8 November 2017)
2017

Related topics