Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
Some of the best quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. are listed below.
- “A right delayed is a right denied.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?‘” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Seeing is not always believing.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “The time is always right to do what is right.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – 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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
