Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

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.

We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers .

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

I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity

The ability to lead a happy life is made, not found

The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.

The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions.

If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

We must recognize that we can't solve our problems now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power.... a radical restructuring of the architecture of American society.

Good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.

We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society.

Alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

In our society, it is psychological murder to deprive a man of a job...you are in substance saying to that man "You have no right to exist.

When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom.

True compassion is more than throwing a coin to a beggar. It demands of our humanity that if we live in a society that produces beggars, we are morally commanded to restructure that society.

The sooner our society admits that the Negro Revolution is no momentary outburst soon to subside into placid passivity, the easier the future will be for us all.

I never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of white society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with the Negro for his freedom.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

We stand in life at midnight; we are always at the threshold of a new dawn.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.

Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.