For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
School takes 13 years, because that is how long it takes to break a child's spirit. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
The words 'bad timing' came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were ignorant… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
Let us say boldly, that if the total slum violations of law by the white man over the years were calculated and… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience... But we come here tonight to… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. A nation that continues year… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
The majority of the Negroes who took part in the year-long boycott of Montgomery's buses were poor and untutored; but they understood… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share
There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share
The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. ... We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share
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 Copy Share Image
Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
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 power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living. If we… — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share
The supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
The great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
What seems so necessary today may not even be desirable tomorrow. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
The Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor's arrogance and contempt. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
