Skip to content

Life Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr

137 Life quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr

All Life quotes Martin Luther King, Jr’s page

Martin Luther King, Jr. notes that knowing what’s right but not acting on it is a deep failure. He describes humanity as a single, interrelated process where everyone is a brother. He also says that the quality of a life matters more than how long it lasts.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

The ability to lead a happy life is made, not found

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Life isn't worth living until you have found something worth dying for.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Love is the supreme unifying principle of life.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Jazz speaks for life. This is triumphant music.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

I don't think you can be in public life without being called bad names.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Your self-sacrificin g devotion to your purpose in life and your unwavering faith will carry you through times of difficulty.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Peace is not simply the absence of conflict, but the existence of justice for all people.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

If a man hasn't found anything worth dying for, he hasn't anything worth living for.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Our goal is to create a beloved community," said Dr. King, "and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one...should be a deep belief in your…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

All life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Courageous men never lose the zest for living even though their life situation is zestless; cowardly men, overwhelmed by the uncertainties of…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

If I were constantly worried about death, I couldn't function. After a while, if your life is more or less constantly in…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

The use of violence in our struggle would be both impractical and immoral. To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

I choose to identify with the underprivileged, I choose to give my life for the hungry, I choose to give my life…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever recurring song of retaliation. The oceans of history are…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

There may come a time when it will be possible for you to humiliate your worst enemy or even to defeat him,…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

It all boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

I just want to leave a committed life behind.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

A man who has nothing he is willing to die for has nothing worth living for

Martin Luther King, Jr

Image

Other authors on Life

More by Martin Luther King, Jr

The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. ... We are…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.

Martin Luther King, Jr

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only…

Martin Luther King, Jr

I’ve been to the Mountaintop

Martin Luther King, Jr

The supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.

Martin Luther King, Jr

The great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.

Martin Luther King, Jr

What seems so necessary today may not even be desirable tomorrow.

Martin Luther King, Jr

The Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor's arrogance and contempt.

Martin Luther King, Jr

The majority of the Negroes who took part in the year-long boycott of Montgomery's buses were poor and untutored; but they understood the essence…

Martin Luther King, Jr

Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth,

Martin Luther King, Jr

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will…

Martin Luther King, Jr