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We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Age: 39 †
Born: 1929
Born: January 15
Died: 1968
Died: April 4
Civil Rights Advocate
Human Rights Activist
Humanitarian
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Atlanta
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MLK
Martin Luther King
Dr. King
Michael King
Michael King Jr.
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Martin Luther King
Jr.
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More quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation and this means we must develop a world perspective.
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The beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
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The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.
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I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity
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I am indebted to my wife Coretta, without whose love, sacrifices, and loyalty neither life nor work would bring fulfillment. She has given me words of consolation when I needed them and a well-ordered home where #Christian love is a reality.
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One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
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The great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.
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A right delayed is a right denied.
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The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!
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True sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
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You can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
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Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.
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Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come.
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A true revolution of values will see that the western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
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Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.
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It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
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Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. Our hope for creative living lies in our ability to reestablish the spiritual needs of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own instruments.
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Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.
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You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.
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By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists . . . Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.
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