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Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And if a person has not found something to die for, that person isn't fit to live!

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.
Persons
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Inner
Live
Kill
Even
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Worth
Eternally
Something
Dies
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More quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.
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Some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
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Your self-image should not come from the job you do but from how well you do your job.
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If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that's the strong person.
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I just want to do God’s will.
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Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
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So when Jesus says Love your enemies, he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition.
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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.
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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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Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder the hate.
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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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We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.
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Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
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We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we will not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace
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We as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformists.
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I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
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Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality. As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.
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A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
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As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of 'self-defense.' In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.
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Certainly I'm not saying that you sit down and patiently accept injustice. I'm talking about a very strong force, where you stand up with all your might against an evil system, and you are not a coward.
Martin Luther King, Jr.