In this post, we’ll read Martin Luther King Jr. quotes who was a prominent American civil rights leader, minister, and an advocate for nonviolent activism in the struggle for civil rights and social justice.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was the son of a Baptist minister and grew up in a family that was actively involved in the African American church.
He played a vital role in the American civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s.
He, along with the efforts of other civil rights activists, contributed to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Let’s read some of the best Martin Luther King Jr. quotes about life, love, justice and more.
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
1. “A right delayed is a right denied.”
2. “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
3. “One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it an never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
4. “What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.”
5. “Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.”
6. “I am what I am because of who we all are.”
7. “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
Best Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
1. “You can kill the dreamer, but you can’t kill the dream.”
2. “Procrastination is still the thief of time.”
3. “You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.”
4. “No person has the right to rain on your dreams.”
5. “The time is always right to do the right thing.”
6. “Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”
7. “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
8. “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes about Life
1. “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
2. “The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.”
3. “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
4. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?”
5. “There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”
6. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
7. “It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”
8. “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
9. “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.”
10. “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes about Justice
1. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
2. “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
3. “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
4. “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes about Love
1. “I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
2. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
3. “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
4. “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
5. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.”
6. “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. “This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
7. “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes about Silence
1. “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
2. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
3. “Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.”
4. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
5. “Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Peace
1. “If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”
2. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
3. “There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
4. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
5. “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Faith & Hope
1. “Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
2. “But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
3. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
4. “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”
5. “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on War & Freedom
1. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
2. “The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”
3. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
4. “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
5. “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
6. “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”
7. “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
8. “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes about Success
1. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
2. “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
3. “As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
4. “There is no gain without struggle.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes about Education
1. “Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”
2. “Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
3. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
These Martin Luther King Jr. quotes reflect his ideas and his desire for justice, peace and equality around the world.
He played a crucial role in marches advocating for the right to vote for African Americans, and contributed to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers.
But his legacy endures, and he is remembered as a symbol of the fight against racial injustice and inequality.
Which of these Martin Luther King Jr. quotes left an impact on you?
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