Top 100 Martin King Quotes
#1. The black agenda, from Frederick Douglas to Ida B. Wells to Martin King, has always been the most broad, deep, inclusive, embracing agenda of the nation.
Cornel West
#2. It is Martin King who taught that a real moral struggle
seeks to win partners, not to leave victims.
Maulana Karenga
#3. We look at the legacy of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells and Ella Baker, Malcolm X and Martin King. We have, and part of the struggle now in the age of [Barack] Obama is how do we keep alive the legacy of Martin King?
Cornel West
#4. Martin King was fundamentally committed to the least of these [poor, working people]. Of course, he was a Christian soldier for justice from the 25th chapter of Matthew.
Cornel West
#5. Anyone who wants to prevent you from making other people happy is an enemy. If you are stopping yourself from making others happy, you are your own enemy.
Israelmore Ayivor
#6. I have never had a secret hero in my mind but I have kept a lot of mentors in my mind that are heroes. Gandhi, Jesus, Moses, Martin Luther King they were all secret heroes in my mind because they stood for what they wanted, what they believed in.
John Assaraf
#7. Let no one drag you so low as to hate them"
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Elle Jefferson
#8. The heroes of my childhood were Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy ... but I was inspired by the ideals of our 40th president and became a Republican.
Mike Pence
#9. I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive.
Cory Booker
#10. I want my kids to know that they're just as good and just as American as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Dr. Martin Luther King. My worst fear is they will become ordinary.
Rafe Esquith
#11. I think that not only do saints make poor role models, they are incapable in one sense of identifying radically with those of us who are mere mortals. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mortality says to us that here's a figure who got up every day of his life facing tremendous odds and yet overcame them.
Michael Eric Dyson
#12. Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech always sends me down some path, some trajectory of some creative idea.
Abigail Washburn
#13. Some people in the church, like Martin Luther King, Jr., came out against segregation. But if you look at the bulk of organized religion, you will discover that it endorsed slavery and quoted the Bible to approve it; the Pope even owned slaves.
John Shelby Spong
#14. I must personally say that I do question the sincerity and nonviolent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations.
Jerry Falwell
#15. Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero
Morgan Freeman
#16. I realized that my grandfather walked with Martin Luther King forty years ago. That was his dream. And in his little way, he helped us get closer to where we are today.
Tim Daly
#17. I have to pinch myself sometimes. It's unbelievable, but it's not. Because I know that this would not be happening if it hadn't been for Dr. Martin Luther King.
Mavis Staples
#18. [Belafonte]'d take me to perform for Martin Luther King's cause. But when they were marching I did not take part, because I was not a citizen
Miriam Makeba
#19. Only in darkness can you see the stars. -- MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Timothy Thacker
#20. Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top: I want to take us to the bank.
Don King
#21. If you will always remember your age and forget your dream, you will live great years and narrow impacts will come out of it.
Israelmore Ayivor
#22. The saddest face I ever saw on Martin Luther King was at the funeral of the four little girls slain in Birmingham, Alabama.
James A. Forbes
#23. Everyone knows, even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King Jr., can say his most famous moment was that 'I have a dream speech. No one can go further than one sentence. All we know is that this had a dream. We do not know what the dream was'.
Henry Louis Taylor Jr.
#24. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been the last person to have wanted his iconization and his heroism. He was an enormously guilt-laden man. He was drenched in a sense of shame about his being featured as the preeminent leader of African-American culture and the civil rights movement.
Michael Eric Dyson
#25. Imagine Martin Luther King saying, 'I have a dream ... But I don't know if the others will buy it.'
Benjamin Zander
#26. Martin Luther King was talking about racism, war and poverty. I think we have made progress enormous progress in racism and war, but we have made little or no progress in poverty. And it's because the economy has gotten more and more complex as we have globalized.
Andrew Young
#27. Leadership is self-made. People who have deliberately decided to become problems solver lead better.
Israelmore Ayivor
#28. In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.
Al Sharpton
#29. Martin Luther King did not stir his audience in 1963 by declaiming 'I have a nightmare'
Anthony Giddens
#30. It may sound strange, but I get the inspiration for most of my Dreams while I'm sleeping.
Mark W. Boyer
#31. The Civil Rights Movement, it wasn't just a couple of, you know, superstars like Martin Luther King. It was thousands and thousands - millions, I should say - of people taking risks, becoming leaders in their community.
Barbara Ehrenreich
#32. The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the matter is, you know, people do respond to riots. The 1968 Housing Act was in large response to riots that broke out after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. They cited these as an actual inspiration.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
#35. Racial caste systems do not require racial hostility or overt bigotry to thrive. They need only racial indifference, as Martin Luther King Jr. warned more than forty-five years ago.
Michelle Alexander
#36. Whatever you want is behind the mountain of struggles. Nothing great comes with ease.
Israelmore Ayivor
#37. Develop the muscles for hard work and never be an early quitter.
Israelmore Ayivor
#38. Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.
Jay-Z
#39. Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#40. The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated restaurant beside the same white man who had brutalized them for 400 years.
Malcolm X
#41. There's no Black, White, Asian, or Latinos. The only "RACE" is the "HUMAN-RACE".
Henry Johnson Jr
#42. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy, nonviolence and racial justice.
Mark Pryor
#43. Leaders fight hard wars against
injustice and unfairness. They
believe that the truth is a weapon;
when triggered, the lie dies.
Israelmore Ayivor
#44. 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
#45. People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don't do this and don't do that. But it's hard to live up to some people's expectations.
Rodney King
#46. I think hip-hop has definitely brought the black experience to white kids more than the civil rights movement did and more than any teacher's well-intentioned lecture on Martin Luther King did.
Henry Rollins
#47. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort.
Robert Kennedy
#48. Martin Luther King taught us all nonviolence. I was told to extend nonviolence to the mother and her calf.
Dick Gregory
#49. We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.
Jonathan Kozol
#50. Martin luther king ' A man who have not discovered something he will die for, is not fit to live.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#51. Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.
David Cameron
#52. We wouldn't be as far along as a country if we didn't take on some of Martin Luther King's ways that he instilled in us.
Rodney King
#53. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.
Morgan Freeman
#54. It's hard to deny that an alarming number of those who stood for peace, not war, were either killed by deranged lone gunmen or else died in suspicious circumstances. We refer of course to the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King, Benazir Bhutto, Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon, to name but a few.
James Morcan
#55. Martin Luther King said America had given a bad check to black people.
Andrew Young
#56. Freedom rings bells to wake us from the comfort of beautiful dreams and empower the efforts that turn them into reality.
Aberjhani
#57. People who boast about age are actually forgetting something special. Age is not barrier to or elevator to success; that's the job of vision.
Israelmore Ayivor
#58. We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.
Cornel West
#59. One of the things about Steve Jobs is that he gives us an opportunity to look at the disjuncture between that world and the world he claimed that Apple represented, the "Think different" world of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Gandhi.
Alex Gibney
#60. Sometimes, people don't need our homes to live in or our bodies to lean on. All they need are our hands to lift them up.
Israelmore Ayivor
#62. Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.
Christopher Judge
#63. I have a dream. With that one sentence, Martin Luther King touched and empowered an entire nation. You know what else he did? He made everybody else without dreams feel real bad.
Christopher Titus
#64. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.
Aberjhani
#65. I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant.
Henry Rollins
#67. Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy a better place, where everyday people, from poor people who were white and red and yellow and black and brown, would be able to live lives in decency and dignity.
Cornel West
#68. Harbour no hatred in your heart against anyone. People who do this have placed their influence on the risky line.
Israelmore Ayivor
#69. One of the books that has guided me in the last ten years of my life to help me to be that leader is the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace. He's a Vietnamese monk. He was nominated for a Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King.
Sandra Cisneros
#70. Age in just a number. It carries no weight. The real weight is in impacts. The truth is that you can do it at any age. Get up and be willing to leave a mark.
Israelmore Ayivor
#71. Malcolm X recognized that difference contains its own value, and that the struggle must be to advance that value. Martin Luther King is admired by everyone, he wants everyone to join together, but this idea that you should let them hit you on the other side of your face, this makes no sense to me.
Teju Cole
#72. One of the first steps to successful leadership is to forget your age and remember your dream.
Israelmore Ayivor
#73. Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down.
From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris
Martin Luther King Jr.
#74. I sometimes think that the In campaign appears to be operating to a script written by George R.R. Martin and Stephen King - Brexit would mean a combination of 'A Feast for Crows' and 'Misery.'
Michael Gove
#75. You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That's what Martin Luther King told me.
Lil' Wayne
#76. I'll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King.
Malcolm X
#77. You know, it's hard to say this, but I suspect that Obama is afraid either of blackmail potential or even worse. And he has referred to the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in this main saying, "don't you remember what happened to Dr. King?"
Ray McGovern
#78. There's a natural tendency to sanitize and polish any historical icon whether it be George Washington chopping down the cherry tree or Martin Luther King saying, "I have a dream."
Taylor Branch
#79. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.
Mitt Romney
#80. You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.
Rush Limbaugh
#81. Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same.
Henry Louis Gates
#83. Tolstoy to Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Me and You
Brooke Bida
#84. I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.
Dick Gregory
#85. It's one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he's leading to realize whatever he's dreaming. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said, 'I have a dream. Of course, I'm not sure they'll be up to it.
Benjamin Zander
#86. 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
#87. I was doing a civil rights musical here in Los Angeles, and we sang at one of the rallies where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke, and I remember the thrill I felt when we were introduced to him. To have him shake your hand was an absolutely unforgettable experience.
George Takei
#88. Martin Luther King was a leader for all Americans on our own professed values.
Taylor Branch
#89. Martin Luther King Jr. called for us to be lovestruck with each other, not colorblind toward each other. To be lovestruck is to care, to have deep compassion, and to be concerned for each and every individual, including the poor and vulnerable.
Michelle Alexander
#90. I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
-Martin Luther King
Bryan Curtis
#91. His headstone said
FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST
But death is a slave's freedom
We seek the freedom of free men
And the construction of a world
Where Martin Luther King could have lived and
preached non-violence
Nikki Giovanni
#92. The book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, I read it when I was about 17-and-a-half or 18. It changed my life.
John Lewis
#93. I have suffered as much as Martin Luther King. Only I didn't get the bullet. And I would have taken the bullet if I could have.
Ralph Abernathy
#94. I'm the Ali of today. I'm the Marvin Gaye of today. I'm the Bob Marley of today. I'm the Martin Luther King, or all the other greats that have come before us. And a lot of people are starting to realise that now.
R. Kelly
#95. When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston, there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, Malcolm X was alive; great, great leaders were emerging from the southern freedom movement.
Jonathan Kozol
#96. What's that? My six song album entitled Bo Fo Sho is currently available on iTunes? With three songs that have never been heard on the internet? Uh, and if I try to pirate it for free I'll get AIDS? I would have guessed scurvy. Well, see you later ghost of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.
Bo Burnham
#97. As [Martin Luther] King said, it never cost anybody a dime to integrate the lunch counters. When you start talking about trying to deal with jobs and hunger and things that require investment, then that's really the tough stuff, because everybody wants to do right if it doesn't cost them anything.
Marian Wright Edelman
#99. Don't just have dreams. Take actions too. To make it possible, begin every dream with a simple action and your interest will beam out.
Israelmore Ayivor
#100. I think, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks will go down as one of the two most well-known and remembered figures out of the Civil Rights Movement.
Douglas Brinkley
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