Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Best Quotes

1. On Progress

“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.”

2. On Faith

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

3. On Living A Giving Life

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

4. On Injustice

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

5. On Being Alive

“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for. “

6. On Living

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

7. On Being A Man

“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.”

8. On Playing Your Position

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“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

9. On Salvation

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

10. On The Laws He Sought To Change

” It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

11. On Altruism

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

12. On Truth & Unconditional Love

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

13. On Doing Great Things

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

14. On Communication & Fear

“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.”

15. On Forgiveness

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.”

16. On Ignorance

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

17. On Riots

“A riot is the language of the unheard.”

18. On Love

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

19. On Oneness

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

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21. On Injustice

“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”