100 Famous quotes and sayings by Martin Luther King Jr. Here are the best Martin Luther King Jr. quotes to read that will surely inspire you. Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist and a Christian minister. As one of the most prestigious leaders, he was also the youngest to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. May these quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. give you an insight into his contributions and ideals that will considerably benefit you. Share these quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. with your friends, family, and loved ones to inspire them as well.
-min.jpg "Famous quotes and sayings by Martin Luther King Jr.")
1. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
2. “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
3. “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
4. “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
5. “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
6. “No person has the right to rain on your dreams.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
7. “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
8. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
9. “Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
-min.jpg "Famous quotes and sayings by Martin Luther King Jr.")
10. “The time is always right to do the right thing.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
11. “Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
12. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
13. “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
14. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
15. “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
16. “There is no gain without struggle.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
17. “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
18. “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King Jr.
19. “We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
20. “But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
21. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
22. “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
23. “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
24. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
25. “Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
26. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
27. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
28. “Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
29. “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.
30. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
31. “It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
32. “Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
33. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
34. “A right delayed is a right denied.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
35. “A lie cannot live.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
36. “Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
37. “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
38. “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
39. “It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
40. “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
41. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
42. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
43. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
44. “The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
45. “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
46. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
47. “There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
48. “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
49. “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
50. “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
51. “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
52. “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
53. “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
54. “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
55. “Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
56. “What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
57. “One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it an never be taken away unless it is surrendered.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
58. “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
59. “If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
60. “Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
61. “There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
62. “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
63. “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
64. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
65. “One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
66. “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
67. “I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
68. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
69. “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
70. “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
71. “Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
72. “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
73. “It is just as wrong, or even perhaps more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
74. “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
75. “If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
76. “What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?” – Martin Luther King Jr.
77. “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
78. “I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
79. “We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
80. “Without love, there is no reason to know anyone, for love will in the end connect us to our neighbors, our children and our hearts.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
81. “We must substitute courage for caution.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
82. “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
83. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
84. “The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
85. “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
86. “Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
87. “Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
88. “But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
89. “The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
90. “You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
91. “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
92. “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
93. “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 bent.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
94. “The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
95. “I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
96. “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
97. “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
98. “Violence is not only impractical but immoral.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
99. “When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
100. “Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
2. “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
3. “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
4. “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
5. “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
6. “No person has the right to rain on your dreams.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
7. “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
8. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
9. “Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
11. “Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
12. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
13. “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
14. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
15. “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
16. “There is no gain without struggle.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
17. “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
18. “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King Jr.
19. “We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
20. “But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
21. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
22. “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
23. “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
24. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
25. “Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
26. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
27. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
28. “Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
29. “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.
30. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
31. “It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
32. “Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
33. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
34. “A right delayed is a right denied.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
35. “A lie cannot live.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
36. “Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
37. “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
38. “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
39. “It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
40. “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
41. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
42. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
43. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
44. “The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
45. “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
46. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
47. “There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
48. “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
49. “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
50. “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
51. “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
52. “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
53. “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
54. “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
55. “Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
56. “What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
57. “One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it an never be taken away unless it is surrendered.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
58. “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
59. “If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
60. “Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
61. “There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
62. “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
63. “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
64. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
65. “One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
66. “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
67. “I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
68. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
69. “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
70. “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
71. “Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
72. “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
73. “It is just as wrong, or even perhaps more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
74. “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
75. “If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
76. “What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?” – Martin Luther King Jr.
77. “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
78. “I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
79. “We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
80. “Without love, there is no reason to know anyone, for love will in the end connect us to our neighbors, our children and our hearts.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
81. “We must substitute courage for caution.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
82. “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
83. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
84. “The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
85. “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
86. “Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
87. “Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
88. “But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
89. “The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
90. “You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
91. “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
92. “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
93. “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 bent.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
94. “The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
95. “I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
96. “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
97. “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
98. “Violence is not only impractical but immoral.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
99. “When you are right, you cannot be too radical; When you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
100. “Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.” – Martin Luther King Jr.