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

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

The amazing aftermath of Birmingham, the sweeping Negro Revolution, revealed to people all over the land that there are no outsiders in all these fifty states of America. When a police dog buried his fangs...

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth...

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

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

But 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. The large house in which we live demands...

Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth....

One of these days I’m going to put my body where my mind is.

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

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...

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow...

The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of...

I suggested then that the prize was not given merely as recognition of past achievement, but also as recognition, a more profound recognition, that the nonviolent way, the American Negro’s way, was the answer to...

A lie cannot live.

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

My call to the ministry was not a miraculous or supernatural something. On the contrary it was an inner urge calling me to serve humanity.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost...

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality...

What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.

A right delayed is a right denied.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.

There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.

It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of...

One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. .

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is...

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...

One of the grat tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On...

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer,...

No one can pretend that because a people may be oppressed, every individual member is virtuous and worthy.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools

I have a dream. . .

As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone...

Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.

In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I heard Coretta cry, “Martin, Martin, come quickly!” I put down my cup and ran toward the living room. As I approached the front window Coretta pointed...

We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.

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.

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.

We must substitute courage for caution.