Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”

“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

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

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

“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.”

“I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”

“I have decided to stick to love... Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

“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.”

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?”

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.”

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.”

“No person has the right to rain on your dreams.”

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“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.”

“The time is always right to do the right thing.”

“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.”

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”

“There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

“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.”

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

“Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.”