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Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But Im not concerned about that now. I just want to do Gods will. And Hes allowed me to go up to the mountain. And Ive looked over, and Ive seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream. for all of us today, the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We are still in for the season of suffering. How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever. Our God is marching on.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I feel that we will continue to have a non-violent movement, and we will continue to find the vast majority of Negroes committed to non-violence, at least as the best tactical approach and from a pragmatic point of view as the best strategy in dealing with the problem of racial injustice. Realism impels me to admit, however, that when there is justice and the pursuit of justice, violence appears, and where there is injustice and frustration, the potentialities for violence are greater, and I would like to strongly stress the point that the more we can achieve victories through non-violence, the more it will be possible to keep the non-violent discipline at the center of the movement. But the more we find individuals facing conditions of frustration, conditions of disappointment and seething despair as a result of the slow pace of things and the failure to change conditions, the more it will be possible for the apostles of violence to interfere.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Acceptance
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We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Age
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The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Belief
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There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Bravery
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We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Character
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The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., "Strength to Love" speech (1963)
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Community
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We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Death
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If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., (speech; Detroit, Michigan), June 23, 1963
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Equality
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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. I have a dream today!
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Evil
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He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Excellence
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If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo 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 streetsweeper who did his job well.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Faith
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Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Fanaticism
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The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Freedom
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Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Future, The
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Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am presently experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Goodness
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Greatness & Great Things
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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.
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Hate
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Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Books by and about Martin Luther King, Jr.