Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.

I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable

But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.

Your self-sacrificin g devotion to your purpose in life and your unwavering faith will carry you through times of difficulty.

It all boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.

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.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

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

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

I submit that 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 expressing the highest respect for law.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.