Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.

The Curse of poverty has no justification in our age...The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It is always the right time to do the right thing.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Even though I have never had an abrupt conversion experience, religion has been real to me and closely knitted to life. In fact the two cannot be separated; religion for me is life.

We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.