Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Freedom only comes through persistent revolt, through persistent agitation, through persistently rising up against the system of evil.

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.

The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.

Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free.

There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.

If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny.

The Negro's great stumbling block in the drive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.

Free at last; free at last; thank God Almighty we are free at last.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.

Faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.