Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of revelation who fought tirelessly and endlessly for the rights of African Americans all over the country.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, Dr. King was always studying and learning. He graduated high school at 15 before going to Morehouse College in 1944, followed by the Croxer Theological Seminary in 1948 and the Boston University School of Theology in 1951. He married Coretta Scott King in 1953 and welcomed four kids with her before his death in 1968.
But his family wasn’t the only thing Dr. King was proud of. After earning a doctorate in systemic theology, he became a highly sought-after Baptist minister, as well as a very famous leader in the Civil Rights Movement. During his time in that position, Dr. King delivered hundreds of speeches expressing his dreams about racism in America coming to an end.
His most famous speech was in August 1963 when he delivered “I Have a Dream” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Tens of thousands of people showed up to watch Dr. King speak.
“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,” the late activist said. “I have a dream today.”
Dr. King was tragically shot and killed in April 1968 at age 39.
Now, though, over 55 years later, Dr. King’s legacy lives on. And to honor him on this Martin Luther King Jr. day, we’ve decided to round up his most beloved and inspiring quotes on topics like education, faith, love and racial injustice. Read on for more.
Powerful Martin Luther King Jr. quotes about courage and taking a stand
- “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
- “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
- “The time is always right to do what is right.”
- “Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”
- “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
- “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
- “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle.”
- “You can kill the dreamer, but you can’t kill the dream.”
- “The road to freedom must be uphill, even if it is arduous and frustrating. Out of this crucible of service, a creative specialist in social change must emerge.”
- “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?”
- “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.”
- “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 permanent attitude.”
- “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
- “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.”
- “For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.”
- “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
Inspiring Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on education and knowledge
- “The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”
- “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.
- “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”
- “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”
- “Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal and the facts from the fiction.”
- “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
- “A lie cannot live.”
- “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
Uplifting Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on hope, love and faith
- “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”
- “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
- “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
- “If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend’s own sake.”
- “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
- “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
- “Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”
- “That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”
- “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
- “The best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.”
- “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”
- “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
- “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
Important Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on racial justice and equality
- “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
- “I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.”
- “ 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.”
- “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
- ”We know through painful experience that the oppressor never volunteers freedom; it must be demanded by the oppressed… justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
- “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
- “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
- “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
- “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
- “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
- “Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why psychiatrists say, ‘Love or perish.’ Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
