Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on the 15th of January, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. He was an American Christian minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968. He is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience.
Martin Luther King Jr. participated in and led marches for blacks’ right to vote, labor rights, and other basic civil rights. In 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance.
After his assassination on 4th April, 1968 at Memphis, Tennessee, United States. He was memorialized by Martin Luther King Jr. Day and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
Below, we have compiled an array of popular Martin Luther King Jr. quotes and sayings.
140 Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes About Life, Racism & Leadership
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty we are free at last.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Be the peace you wish to see in the world.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character;― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
But whatever my doubts, however heavy the burden, I feel that I must accept the task of helping to make this nation and this world a better place to live in – for all men, black and white alike.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Courageous men never lose the zest for living even though their life situation is zestless; cowardly men, overwhelmed by the uncertainties of life, lose the will to live.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Voting is the foundation stone for political action.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws… What is the difference between the two?…An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
One who breaks an unjust 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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Our children need our presence, not our presents. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must shift the arms race into a ‘peace race’.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Seeing is not always believing.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Whatever career you may choose for yourself – doctor, lawyer, teacher – let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A right delayed is a right denied.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The time is always right to do what is right.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
You can kill the dreamer, but you can’t kill the dream― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A productive and happy life is not something you find; it is something you make. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
No person has the right to rain on your dreams.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
In a sense, songs are the soul of a movement.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream – a dream yet unfulfilled.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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?’― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Unconditional love will have the final word in reality.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The best way to solve any problem is to remove its cause.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership… Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
It’s not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Freedom has always been an expensive thing. History is fit testimony to the fact that freedom is rarely gained without sacrifice and self-denial.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
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.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity-thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I subject myself to self-purification and to endless self-analysis; I question and soul-search constantly into myself to be as certain as I can that I am fulfilling the true meaning of my work, that I am maintaining my sense of purpose, that I am holding fast to my ideals, that I am guiding my people in the right direction.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few;― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Without justice, there can be no peace.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Find a voice in a whisper.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
We spend 322 000$ for each enemy we kill in Vietnam, while we spend in the so-called “war on poverty” in America only about 53$ for each person classified as poor.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important ― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote
A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent― Martin Luther King Jr. Quote