Quotes About Martin Luther King Jr

#1. Let no one drag you so low as to hate them"
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Elle Jefferson

#2. Using references of current technology, Martin Luther King Jr. could mentally cut and paste better than any individual I have ever known.

Clarence Benjamin Jones

#3. He [Martin Luther King Jr.] always used to say you have no choice about being born or dying. The only thing you have a choice about is what you die for.

Andrew Young

#4. Pigmentation was a quick and convenient way of judging a person. One of us, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once proposed we instead judge people by the content of their character. He was shot.

Jon Stewart

#5. 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

#6. As a sign of utmost gratitude for his contributions to the Indian society in restoring equal rights of the citizens, I confer him (B.R. Ambedkar) the title "Martin Luther King Jr. of India.

Abhijit Naskar

#7. 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

#8. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "No lie will last forever." We have to work at removing lies from our own hearts. And on the national level, we do this not because we blame our country, but because we love it.

Marianne Williamson

#9. 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

#10. 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

#11. I hope that the opening of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial will be a life-altering experience that inspires every American to rededicate themselves to the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream.

Yvette Clarke

#12. In 1968, the sanitation workers of Memphis tried to form a union. The city resisted. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life.

Robert Reich

#13. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't carry just a piece of cloth to symbolize his belief in racial equality; he carried the American flag.

Adrian Cronauer

#14. Only in darkness can you see the stars. -- MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Timothy Thacker

#15. 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

#16. I was raised in Arizona, and I went to public school, and the extent of my knowledge of the civil-rights movement was the story of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. I wonder how much my generation knows.

Emma Stone

#17. 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.

#18. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that the highest point of Jesus's life was the moment when he forgave his executioners,

Karen Armstrong

#19. 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

#20. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great teacher and just a great person in general.

Akeem Ayers

#21. The idea that America elected a black man to be its president forty years after it declined to allow Martin Luther King Jr. to stand on a balcony without getting shot still maintains its power to awe and inspire.

Charlie Pierce

#22. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy led directly to the passage of a historic law, the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Jeffrey Toobin

#23. Life's persistent and most urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?' " - MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Jean Shafiroff

#24. But lost in that sea of (valid) criticism is the perhaps subtler critique that in an age of consumerism, economic imperialism and what Martin Luther King Jr. called "jumboism," the sacrificial way of Jesus may be calling us to forsake the supersized life.

C. Christopher Smith

#25. Each year on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth, America has the opportunity to reflect on our nation's progress towards the realization of his dream.

Adam Schiff

#26. Miracle Message #16: "Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. #MiraclesNow

Gabrielle Bernstein

#27. Luke's like no other guy that I know. I mean, I respect him. I have really high standards and I only respect two other guys," she said, casually.
"I know." I said dryly, "Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr.

Tijan

#28. My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit.

Mitt Romney

#29. Thinking of them reminds me of a quote I read recently from the great Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. that says, "If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl." We must encourage those still struggling to keep moving forward.

William Kamkwamba

#30. 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

#31. As Martin Luther King Jr. prophesied, "I believe what the self-centered have torn down, the other-centered will build up.

Mark Nepo

#32. I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate. Martin Luther King, Jr. after the violent reception he received in Chicago in 1966.

Rick Perlstein

#33. Martin Luther King Jr., recognized bias when he saw it, knew what he was talking about.

Jack Schwartz

#34. One of the greatest men to ever walk this land was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His life exemplified unity by bringing people together for the good of all. In any small way I hope to someday bring people together like Dr. King.

Zack Wamp

#35. 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

#36. Some people think that [it was] Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea to have a boycott. It was a black woman, a teacher, who said we should boycott the buses. You had people like Fannie Lou Hamer; Delta, Mississippi.

John Lewis

#37. Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

Jim Wallis

#38. 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

#39. Like the word hope, we often think of power as negative. It's not. The best definition of power comes from Martin Luther King Jr. He described power as the ability to effect change.

Brene Brown

#40. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my personal heroes.

Ken Salazar

#41. Some people criticize the faithful for getting involved in politics, but it's important to remember that down through the centuries, people motivated by their faith have done many important things. Martin Luther King Jr. - motivated by his faith - brought about an end to segregation in our country.

Frank Wolf

#42. 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

#43. 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

#44. We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.

Cornel West

#45. 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

#46. 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

#47. 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

#48. 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

#49. 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

#50. 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

#51. 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

#52. 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

#53. 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

#54. 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

#55. 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

#56. Even after facing jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. courageously and boldly spoke out against racial inequality.

Yvette Clarke

#57. 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

#58. Without Coretta Scott King, there would not have been a Martin Luther King, Jr. in the way that we know him.

Coretta Scott King

#59. 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

#60. 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

#61. 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

#62. 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

#63. 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

#64. 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

#65. Like Martin Luther King Jr., Frankie dreamed of living in a nation where people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The sonner she realized that dream, the sooner she could get started on Katy Perry's and live the teenage one.

Lisi Harrison

#66. If Martin [Luther King, Jr.]'s philosophy had been embraced and lived out in Iraq and other places, we wouldn't have bin Ladens.

Coretta Scott King

#67. 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

#68. 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

#69. 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

#70. 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

#71. 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

#72. 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

#73. 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

#74. 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

#75. 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

#76. 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

#77. 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

#78. Segregation ... not only harms one physically but injures one spiritually ... It scars the soul ... It is a system which forever stares the segregated in the face, saying 'You are less than ... 'You are not equal to ... '

Martin Luther King Jr.

#79. I have an ultimate faith in America and an audacious faith in mankind.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#80. [Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#81. Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent

Martin Luther King Jr.

#82. When we rise in the morning ... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African; before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#83. My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#84. I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, people will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#85. Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#86. 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

#87. Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#88. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#89. A second basic fact that characterizes nonviolence is that it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#90. Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#91. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#92. Find a voice in a whisper.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#93. It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tired into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#94. There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws ... What is the difference between the two? ... An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#95. If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#96. When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom,

Martin Luther King Jr.

#97. 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?

Martin Luther King Jr.

#98. I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#99. We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we will not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace

Martin Luther King Jr.

#100. Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.

Martin Luther King Jr.