Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
— A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights in the United States through nonviolence and sometimes civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other legalized discrimination.
He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and was the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and helped organize marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. The movement achieved major legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Why We Can't Wait and Strength to Love are among his most quoted works in our library.
He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and was the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and helped organize marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. The movement achieved major legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Why We Can't Wait and Strength to Love are among his most quoted works in our library.
Most quoted works
- The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. 12
- Why We Can't Wait 12
- A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches 4
- I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World 4
- Strength to Love 4
- Letter from the Birmingham Jail 3
I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.
— A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.
— Why We Can't Wait
Find a voice in a whisper.
— Why We Can't Wait
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.
— I Have A Dream
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
— I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.
— A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
— The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
— The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
— I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
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.
— A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
All too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows
— Letter from the Birmingham Jail
What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?
— Strength to Love
We can all get more together than we can apart. And this is the way we gain power. Power is the ability to achieve purpose, power is the ability to effect change, and we need power.
— The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
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.