History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Author
Martin Luther King, Jr.
97 quotations
About Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights in the United States through the use of nonviolence and sometimes civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by Martin Luther King, Jr.We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. W…
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.
I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as…
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is b…
Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that.
Advertisement
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
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.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
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.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is b…
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. W…
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.