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.
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.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.
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.
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
Martin Luther King Jr.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.
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.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.
Martin Luther King Jr.
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
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.