We have compiled some MLK quotes for you.
Martin Luther King Jr Quotes
Find some of the Most Powerful Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes below. They range from love, life, equality, education, progress, freedom, and more.
1. “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
2. “There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”
3. “Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
4. “Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
5. “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
6. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ”
7. “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.”
8. “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
9. “Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
10. “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.”
11. “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
12. “When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative. ”
13. “There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”
14. “A lie cannot live.”
15. “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.”
Read: Martin Luther King Jr Quotes on Love
16. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
17. “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
18. “The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life, is what is important.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
19. “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
20. “He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
21. “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
22. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
23. “The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows”
24. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
25. “The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.”
Read: Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Leadership
26. “Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.”
27. “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
28. “It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
29. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” -Martin Luther King Jr.
30. “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
31. “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.
32. “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.”
33. “Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.”
Read: Inspirational Martin Luther King Jr Quotes
34. “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.”
35. “That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
36. “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 mankind.”
37. “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.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
38. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”
39. “Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.”
40. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
41. “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
42. “The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.”
43. “Seeing is not always believing.”
44. “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
45. “What is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy.”
46. “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
47. “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
48. “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”
49. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
50. “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.”
51. “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.”
52. “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”
53. “The more there are riots, the more repressive action will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.”
54. “We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”
55. “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
56. “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
57. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
58. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
59. “The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.”
60. “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
61. The time is always right to do what is right.
62. So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
63. “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
64. “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
65. “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
66. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
67. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
68. “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.”
69. “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
70. “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.”