Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
These powerful Martin Luther King Jr. quotes may inspire you to be a better person or give you courage for one of your causes.
King was a civil rights crusader and is recognized worldwide as one of the biggest proponents of nonviolence. Throughout his life, he inspired millions of men and women to take up the cause of justice.
He may have lived for just 39 years, but his impact on the history of America and the world is one of the greatest. His contributions and messages of peace and love have played a significant role in civil rights in the United States and worldwide.
The third Monday of January is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, around his birthday on January 15. Ronald Reagan signed this recognition into law in 1983, and it was first observed in 1986. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
His words have valuable messages for everyone, no matter where you live. Enjoy these MLK quotes and share them with your friends and colleagues.
Best MLK Quotes
1.) Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
2.) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
3.) Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
4.) We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.
5.) We’ve learned to fly the air like birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas like fish, and yet we haven’t learned to walk the earth as brothers and sisters.
6.) Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
7.) Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
8.) I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
9.) We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
10.) I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Courage Counts Quotations
11.) There comes a time when silence is betrayal.
12.) 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.
13.) I cannot do great things; I can do small things in a great way.
14.) Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.
15.) Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
16.) We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
17.) True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.
18.) Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.
19.) Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
20.) In spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.
21.) Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
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Non-Violent Protest Quotations
22.) Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
23.) In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.
24.) Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.
25.) No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.
26.) There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
27.) Character is how you treat those who can do nothing for you.
28.) Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.
29.) 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.
30.) If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. (And) If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.
31.) With patience and firm determination, we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope.
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Civil Disobedience
32.) The time is always right to do the right thing.
33.) Your ignorance is their power.
34.) Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
35.) Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ (Learn more about volunteering)
36.) Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.
37.) We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but on the positive affirmation of peace.
38.) It does not matter how long you live but how well you do it.
39.) Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
40.) For when people get caught up with that which is right, and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
41.) Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
42.) There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.
Influential Martin Luther King Jr Quotes
43.) To be great, you have to be willing to be mocked, hated, and misunderstood. Stay strong.
44.) We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
45.) Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
46.) You are not only responsible for what you say but also for what you do not say.
47.) One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
48.) When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that can make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.
49.) Not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service…You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.
50.) We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
51.) Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle.
Influential MLK Sayings On Leadership
52.) A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
53.) Oh, the worst of all tragedies is not to die young but to live until seventy-five and yet not ever truly to have lived.
54.) Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.
55.) 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.
56.) Don’t allow anybody to make you feel that you’re nobody.
57.) Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.
58.) If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Do What’s Right Sayings
59.) Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.
60.) 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.
61.) I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education, and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.
62.) Only through the bringing together of head and heart—intelligence and goodness—shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature.
63.) I have a dream that one day, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
64.) 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.
Inspirational MLK Jr.
65.) Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; It must be demanded by the oppressed.
66.) We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
67.) Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice.
68.) No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
69.) We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
70.) 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.
71.) He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.
72.) It really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I’ve seen the Promised Land.
73.) Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Influential On Equality
74.) 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.
75.) Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
76.) I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.
77.) Cowardice asks the question – is it safe? Expediency asks the question – is it politic? Vanity asks the question – is it popular? But conscience asks the question – is it right?
78.) We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.
79.) Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
80.) If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving; you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today, I still have a dream.
Influential On Peace
81.) We must substitute courage for caution.
82.) There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.
83.) Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.
84.) We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
85.) The beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
86.) We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.
87.) 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.
88.) The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
Influential and Inspiring
89.) Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
90.) Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
91.) Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
92.) If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation, and this means we must develop a world perspective.
93.) I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality
94.) The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
95.) In some not too distant tomorrow, the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
By Michael O’Halloran
Michael O’Halloran founded Greeting Card Poet in 2014 and has worked as its publisher and editor ever since. He has co-authored four books on kids’ trivia and four on coaching. Previously, Michael was the president of Magnetic Poetry. He has invented and brought to market over 75 new gift and toy products, most of which involve wordplay. Mike is married and a father of four daughters.
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