Martin Luther King Sermon Quotes

Through our scientific and technological genius we've made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers - or we will all perish together as fools. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Between what is going on in Iraq and Mumia being locked up unjustly, things going on in Israel, Palestine, we don't really have anyone right now like Gandhi. We don't have anyone like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X anymore. It's really a reference to a vision of hope, like someone like Gandhi. ~ Vinnie Paz

Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral ... Every now and then I ask myself, 'What is it that I want said?' I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King Jr., tried to love somebody. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Did the fact that Martin Luther King diddled all those women change what he did for his people? Or Franklin Roosevelt? General Eisenhower? Not one whit. Men are men, and gods are for storybooks. And if you've read your Edith Hamilton or Jane Harrison - or the Old Testament, for that matter - you'll know that gods acted like men most of the time, or worse. ~ Greg Iles

Joining the ranks of some notables who had penned powerful stuff behind bars. Saint Paul, the apostle. John Bunyan. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Martin Luther King Jr. But, ~ Craig Parshall

You're as good as anybody. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

One day after laying a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr., President Bush appoints a federal judge who has built his career around dismantling Dr. King's legacy. ~ Hillary Clinton

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We weren't taught judgment or shame. We were taught history the way it's taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: "There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done." It was the same for us. "Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let's move on. ~ Trevor Noah

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, we have overcome. ~ Maya Angelou

Karen Russell learned to think from her father, someone Peter Gammons knows well, Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, who used his prominence to support Martin Luther King Jr., to support the civil rights movement, and other important work, including work in Africa throughout his career. And Bill Russell is still at it. ~ Donald Trump

We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well. ~ Daryl Hall

Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely "neighbor-regarding concern for others," which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend's own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us listen to the lesson of Martin Luther King, who wrote:
"The movement does not seek to liberate blacks at the price of the humiliation of the whites. It wants to liberate American society and to help all people to liberate themselves. ~ Sean B. Carroll

Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And, more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Black Power advocates are disenchanted with the inconsistencies in the militaristic posture of our government. Over the past decade they have seen America applauding nonviolence whenever the Negroes have practiced it. They have watched it being praised in the sit-in movements of 1960, in the Freedom Riots of 1961, in the Albany movement of 1962, in the Birmingham movement of 1963 and in the Selma movement of 1965. But then these same black young men and women have watched as America sends black young men to burn Vietnamese with napalm, to slaughter men, women, and children; and they wonder what kind of nation it is that applauds nonviolence whenever Negroes face white people in the streets of the United State but then applauds violence and burning and death when these same Negroes are sent to the fields of Vietnam. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

It was now pointed out that the black male child, even in a black school using white textbooks, could early come to the conclusion that all the heroes in history were white men. Furthermore, with the exception of nationally known black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, and others, the black male child frequently saw the adult black male as ineffectual and defeated. The old picture of the white man leading the black man by the hand toward the solution to his problems again gave the black male child a view of the adult black male as something not worth becoming, and killed his spirit and his will to become an adult, problem-solving individual. ~ John Howard Griffin

Too unconcerned to love and too passionless to hate, too detached to be selfish and too lifeless to be unselfish, too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither dead nor alive; they merely exist. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We can dream of an America, and a world, in which love and not money are civilization's bottom line. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why the psychiatrists say, "Love or perish." Hate is too great a burden to bear. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

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. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We stand in life at midnight; we are always at the threshold of a new dawn. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind - it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact - I can only submit to the edict of others. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Try not to leave your work for someone else to do. If possible, carry the work of someone and add it to yours. That's a trait of leaders! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was. ~ Diane Watson

I could never adjust to the separate waiting rooms, separate eating places, separate rest rooms, partly because the separate was always unequal, and partly because the very idea of separation did something to my sense of dignity and self-respect. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

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. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Negro has no room to make any substantial compromises because his store of advantages is too small. He must press unrelentingly for quality, integrated education or his whole drive for freedom will be undermined by the absence of a most vital and indispensable element - learning. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

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. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man does not measure its height in moments of comfort, but in terms of change and controversy ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

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. And so today I still have a dream. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it. ~ David Horowitz

I sound like Jesse Jackson or Martin Luther King, but I honestly feel like the world is mature enough. And, for me, I just want to do good roles. ~ Marlon Wayans