Top MLK Quotes – Inspiring Words from a Civil Rights Icon

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

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

The time is always right to do what is right.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

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.

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

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.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

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.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

The time is always right to do what is right.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

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

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon.

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.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.

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

No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.

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

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

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.

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.

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.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

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

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?’

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

We must build dike of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

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.

We cannot walk alone.

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.