Top 35 Martin Luther King Quotes


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.

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.

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.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.

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

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

With patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the levelling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-eyed wisdom.

I'll tell you, I've seen the lightning flash. I've heard the thunder roll. I felt sin-breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on.

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


Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

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.

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

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

We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.

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

The ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.


Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

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

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to 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.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

We want all of our rights, we want them here, and we want them now.

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.

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

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.


We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts.

In spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

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.

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

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

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