Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

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.

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

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.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.

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

A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.

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

A nation that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act it is an attitude.

Hatred paralyzes life love releases it. Hatred confuses life love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life love illumines it.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.

Now, I say to you today my friends, 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. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society ... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

One who condones evil is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.

Our loyalties must transend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation and this means we must develop a world perspective.

Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

The question is no longer between violence and non-violence it is between non-violence and non-existence.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.