Quotes

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Jeff Buckley photo
Mark Twain photo
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Eckhart Tolle photo
Mary Tyler Moore photo

“Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.”

Mary Tyler Moore (1936–2017) American actress, television producer

As quoted in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 128 (1986), p. 137; later in Quotable Quotes (1997) by Editors of Reader's Digest

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Robert A. Heinlein photo
Julia Quinn photo

“Suddenly it was too hard to be in his presence, too painful to know that he would belong to someone else.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Viscount Who Loved Me

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Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context: We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

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