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I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism.

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.
M.L. King
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Martin Luther King
Jr.
Expression
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More quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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[I] know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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[E]very human life is a reflection of divinity, and... every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man.
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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Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The truth may hurt, but love helps ease the pain.
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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A man does not measure its height in moments of comfort, but in terms of change and controversy
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must face the appalling fact that we have been betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Slaves do not always welcome their deliverers. They become accustomed to being slaves. They would rather gear those ills they have
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late...'
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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We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.