Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come.

The labor movement was the principal force that transforme­d misery and despair into hope and progress.

There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and down-right ignorance.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the struggle for equal rights.

If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable.

My call to the ministry was not a miraculous or supernatural something. On the contrary it was an inner urge calling me to serve humanity.

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.

We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.

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.

Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here.

There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.

The greatness of our God lies in the fact that [He] is both tough minded and tender hearted.

The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die

We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.

You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.