Top 100 Quotes About Luther King
#1. What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.
Rand Paul
#2. Neither my great-grandfather an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda,
Alveda King
#3. Martin Luther King said America had given a bad check to black people.
Andrew Young
#4. We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.
Cornel West
#5. 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
#6. Jail threats did not dissuade Martin Luther King - and intergenerational justice is a moral issue of comparable magnitude to civil rights.
James Hansen
#7. It was Martin Luther King who said, 'In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.' That is why I felt I could not be silent today.
Ed West
#8. Memphis is the place where rock was born and Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. It's full of contradictions, abject poverty, and riches that only music can provide.
Shawn Amos
#9. Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
John Legend
#11. There is no gay leader anywhere near the stature of Martin Luther King, because black activism drew on the profound spiritual tradition of the church, to which gay political rhetoric is childishly hostile.
Camille Paglia
#12. Sitting in the Oval Office, beneath a painting of George Washington, with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. over his right shoulder and a bust of Abraham Lincoln over his left shoulder, Obama told 'National Journal' that the country's economic woes are deep and endemic.
Ron Fournier
#13. Martin Luther King was a human being with a brilliant mind, a powerful heart, and insight, and courage and also with a sense of humor. So he was accessible.
Maya Angelou
#14. The real meaning of courage was the personal sacrifice of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.
Pete Seeger
#15. At Ken Lay's funeral service the minister compared him to Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. The difference is Dr. King had a dream, Ken Lay had a scheme.
Jay Leno
#16. I always knew that I was called to do something. I didn't know what, but I finally rationalized after I met Martin [Luther King, Jr.] and it took a lot of praying to discover this, that this was probably what God had called me to do, to marry him.
Coretta Scott King
#17. 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
#18. 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
#19. 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
#20. I remember the day Richard Nixon won in 1968. That was a time that seemed certain to bring about long awaited seismic change in America. But events of tragic proportion took us on a turn. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were suddenly dead.
Richard Schiff
#22. 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
#23. 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
#24. Every condition exists," Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, "simply because someone profits by its existence. This economic exploitation is crystallized in the slum." Exploitation. Now, there's a word that has been scrubbed out of the poverty debate.
Matthew Desmond
#25. In 1965, as Ralph Gleason has reported, when Martin Luther King's march on Selma, Alabama, was brutally attacked by local and state constabulary, Louis Armstrong, then in Copenhagen, said after watching the carnage on television, "They would beat Jesus if he was black and marched.
Nat Hentoff
#26. A calling is you feel - you look out and see the need - maybe it's the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it's the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was - felt called.
Billy Graham
#27. Inspiration thing is important, to teach the kids that JFK is not an airport, RFK's not a stadium, Martin Luther King ain't a street
Kinky Friedman
#28. Society has always been the free man's greatest enemy. And the free man has been society's greatest friend. How did society treat Jesus, Socrates, Galileo, or Martin Luther King? Yet look what they have left behind.
Laurence Boldt
#29. 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
#30. The legacy of [Martin Luther] King is the very thing that must be expanded if America is to be free and democratic in the 21st century. It's just as simple as that.
Cornel West
#31. My all-time heroes are Thurgood Marshall and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., two men who had to really work to achieve what they did. And I had the privilege of meeting them both.
Monte Irvin
#32. 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
#33. Hip hop culture has done more for race relations in American than anything since Martin Luther King. And I really believe that.
Steve Stoute
#34. I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon but i want to STAY ALIVE.
Madonna
#35. Everyone has the potential to be great, because everyone has the potential to serve." Martin Luther King
Margaret A. Hofmann
#36. I ain't Martin Luther King. I don't need a dream. I have a plan.
Spike Lee
#37. You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That's what Martin Luther King told me.
Lil' Wayne
#38. 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
#39. I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented. The philosophy that he developed, of course, he was greatly influenced by Gandhi and Jesus Christ.
Coretta Scott King
#40. 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
#41. 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
#42. Ruth does love Jesus, same way she loves Lincoln, Robin Hood, Martin Luther King, and Nat. Handsome men who fight for justice.
Samantha Hunt
#43. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.
Mitt Romney
#44. 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
#45. 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
#46. Martin Luther King was a misguided leader. He worked to be recognized as the leader of black America when what black America needs isn't a leader, it is education.
Jim Brown
#47. I was proud to march beside some of the most notable Civil Rights activists, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery.
Charles B. Rangel
#48. I took an interest in the Civil Rights Movement. I listened to Martin Luther King. The Vietnam War was raging. When I was 18, I was eligible for the draft, but when I went to be tested, I didn't qualify.
Radhanath Swami
#49. Even after facing jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. courageously and boldly spoke out against racial inequality.
Yvette Clarke
#50. I wished the president [Barack Obama] were more "Martin Luther King-like."
Cornel West
#51. In 1974, when I started working with the material that became 'Horses,' a lot of our great voices had died. We'd lost Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and people like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
Patti Smith
#52. Tolstoy to Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Me and You
Brooke Bida
#53. 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
#54. I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
Jay-Z
#55. Without Coretta Scott King, there would not have been a Martin Luther King, Jr. in the way that we know him.
Coretta Scott King
#56. 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
#57. 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
#58. The first African-American leader was Dr. Martin Luther King.
Bobby Seale
#59. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s peaceful, determined struggle for social justice, and Sargent Shriver, who launched the Peace Corps, were early heroes. A career of public service was the ultimate aspiration.
Queen Noor Of Jordan
#60. It's great having Bruce Springsteen on my show. We have so much in common! We're both from New Jersey, just from different neighborhoods. Sort of like how Martin Luther King and Margaret Mitchell both came from Atlanta. But from different neighborhoods.
Jon Stewart
#61. It's soul force that removed the English from India. It's soul force that brought down the Berlin Wall. It's soul force that gave life to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights.
Marianne Williamson
#62. Martin Luther King gave the 'I Have a Dream' speech, not the 'I Have a Plan' speech.
Simon Sinek
#63. We're trained to see the world in terms of charismatic organizations and charismatic people. That's who we look to for leadership and change, for transformation. We're awaiting the next J.F.K., the next Martin Luther King, the next Gandhi, the next Nelson Mandela.
Paul Hawken
#64. I have been inspired by Martin Luther King and how he inspired a movement. I have learned that a cause must be organic; if it is to have an impact it must belong to those who join the movement and not those who lead it.
Simon Sinek
#65. My sense of religion is Einstein's sense of relativity. I don't believe in God. I believe that energy never dies. So the possibility exists that you might be breathing in some other form of Moses or Buddha or Muhammad or Bobby Kennedy or Roosevelt or Martin Luther King or Jesus.
Mandy Patinkin
#66. Most great figures in world history are remembered for their compassion. [Martin Luther] King shared this trait with the Ghandis, Mother Teresas, and Mandelas of the world. He also shared this trait with the late Stanley Tookie Williams.
Renford Reese
#67. John Lennon imagined a world filled with peace and love. Martin Luther King dreamt of a world free from racial discrimination and oppression. The guy who invented the Frisbee, dreamt of a world where people would throw a fat, circular object at each other in order to pass the time. He succeeded.
Jon Lajoie
#68. Martin Luther King was only an activist for 13 years and every year he changed and every year he became more radical. By the end he was calling for revolution. People don't know this because they go to too many prayer breakfasts on his birthday.
Bill Ayers
#69. I would love to meet Martin Luther King. His fearless attitude, leadership, and self-awareness changed our world.
Zulay Henao
#70. Years ago a black man spoke about love and was crucified. Then Martin Luther King spoke about equality and was shot. Can you SEE why?
Daniel Marques
#71. 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
#72. The people who have impacted the world didn't live long. Martin Luther King. John F. Kennedy. These people who impact the world were not old people, but they lived so effectively that we cannot erase them from history.
Myles Munroe
#73. Martin Luther King (Jr.) during the civil rights movement used to exclaim that he looked forward to heaven where he would be "Free at last." That is the inscription on his tomb in Atlanta.
Billy Graham
#74. The greatest difference between now and 1964, when I began teaching, is that public policy has pretty much eradicated the dream of Martin Luther King.
Jonathan Kozol
#75. I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late, and when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.
Barack Obama
#76. I grew up in the 1960s in Memphis, and my father was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was born three years before Martin Luther King was killed, and I think that history of civil action was something that I had in my blood.
Ira Sachs
#77. Opponents of legal birth control, including abortion, have tried for decades to play the race card, saying that legal abortion is racist. What they ignore is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood in 1966.
Karen DeCrow
#78. Let's go beyond the Trinity of African-American History. There are so many more to learn about other than Harriett Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks.
Karimah Grayson
#79. 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
#80. Certainly many Northern cities deplored what was going on in the South. But when Martin Luther King, who had been so praised in the North for the work he did in the South, came to work in the cities of the North, the very officials who had praised him sometimes led opposition to his work locally.
John Howard Griffin
#81. Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality.
Bayard Rustin
#82. Obama has little or nothing to do with the civil-rights movement. His roots are in Kenya, and he is shaped far more by anti-colonialism than by anything that Martin Luther King said or did.
Dinesh D'Souza
#83. [Martin Luther ] King didn't pick his leadership position. Most movements are not started by single people.
Marian Wright Edelman
#84. 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
#85. Martin Luther King said it was time to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of human civilization. I don't think anyone is calling Martin Luther King a New Age woo-woo.
Marianne Williamson
#86. I love Louisiana fried fish, but it's all Martin Luther King, I can't go over there.
Vince Staples
#87. People have to allow themselves to be used by God and Martin [Luther King, Jr.] committed himself totally to God's will and purpose and God is always waiting for someone who is willing to do that.
Coretta Scott King
#88. More often than not ... 'Selma' focuses on the one thing we don't expect in a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. - his doubts - and Oyelowo comes through with a deeply felt and quite brilliant performance,
Ty Burr
#89. I think it's a good thing for a president or political leaders to want to put their values or their faith into action. Desmond Tutu did that in South Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. did that here. This is a good thing.
Jim Wallis
#90. 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
#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. It defies reason to believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. would march arm in arm with Wall Street hedge fund managers and members of ALEC to lead a struggle for the privatization of public education, the crippling of unions, and the establishment of for-profit schools.
Diane Ravitch
#93. It's not quite as valuable as if it had been written in 1929, when Martin Luther King was born.
Clayborne Carson
#94. 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
#95. Never, never be afraid to do what is right. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our souls when we look away. - Martin Luther King Jr
Harsh Mander
#96. There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.
Chris Crutcher
#97. 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
#98. Martin Luther King was a leader for all Americans on our own professed values.
Taylor Branch
#99. While Johns (Martin Luther King's predecessor as pastor in Montgomery) agreed with Dexter's general disdain for emotionalism, he was very fond of traditional spirituals, believing they represented a part of their history they ought to embrace and celebrate.
Troy Jackson
#100. Martin Luther King was never an up close and personal figure in the United States.
Taylor Branch
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