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This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

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
Leader
Minister
Pacifist
Pastor
Peace Activist
Politician
Preacher
Theologian
Atlanta
Georgia
MLK
Martin Luther King
Dr. King
Michael King
Michael King Jr.
M.L. King
Martin Luther
Jr. King
Martin Luther King
Jr.
Time
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Cooling
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More quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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But by all means, keep moving.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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O America, how you've taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must move forward in the days ahead with audacious faith. The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The failures of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the present and the future.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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White Americans must be made to understand the basic motives underlying Negro demonstrations. Many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations are boiling inside the Negro, and he must release them. It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people's pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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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Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The modern choice is between non-violence or non-existence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy... In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
Martin Luther King, Jr.