Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.

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.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change.

We need not join the mad rush to purchase an earthly fallout shelter. God is our eternal fallout shelter. From Strength to Love, 1963

We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

In this world is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man.

Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.

Courage faces fear and thereby masters it

Life isn't worth living until you have found something worth dying for.

I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.

Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

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

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

I just want to leave a committed life behind.

The idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence.

Your self-sacrificin g devotion to your purpose in life and your unwavering faith will carry you through times of difficulty.

It all boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.

Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.