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I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.

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.
Influence
River
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Knowledge
Rivers
Idea
Refuse
Jetsam
Ideas
Mere
Flotsam
Men
Accept
Unfolding
Life
Accepting
Unable
Events
Surround

More quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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[nonviolence] seeks to secure moral ends through moral means.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater. [...] when you start hating anybody, it destroys the very center of your creative response to life and the universe so love everybody.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpent-like qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpent-like qualities is to be sentimental, anemic and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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To deny a man a job is to say that a man has no right to exist.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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He who is greatest among you shall be a servant. That's the new definition of greatness. ... By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The belief that God will do everything for man is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith but superstition.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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When we rise in the morning... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The words 'bad timing' came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were ignorant of the background of our planning...they did not realize that it was ridiculous to speak of timing when the clock of history showed that the Negro had already suffered one hundred years of delay.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The thing that we need in the world today, is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. A group of people who have come to see that some things are wrong, whether they’re never caught up with. Some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Nonviolent resistance makes it possible for the Negro to remain in the South and struggle for his rights. The Negro's problem will not be solved by running away.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers?
Martin Luther King, Jr.