Martin luther king quotes – Dr. Martin Luther king Jr Quotes & Speeches

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American clergyman-cum-activist was born on January 15th 1929. He was a human right activist fighting for the civil rights of African-Americans in the United States. In 1964 he became the youngest person to receive the Noble Peace Prize Award for his non violent reform movement against racial segregation and racial discrimination. He was against the Vietnam war and the role of U.S in the war where he found the U. S to be the greatest curator of violence since it tried to occupy Vietnam as its colony. He was assassinated at the age of thirty-nine on April 4th in 1968 at Memphis, Tennessee. Throughout his inspirational life he has immortalized the civil rights movement with some of the most memorable speeches of all time.

The speeches given by Martin Luther King Jr. were as listed below:

1. A Realistic look at the question of Progress in the area of Race Relations (1957)
2. Give us the ballot (1957)
3. Loving Your Enemies (1957)
4. The Measures of  Man (1959)
5. Strength to Love (1963)
6. Great March on Detroit (1963)
7. Lincoln Memorial Address (1963)
8. I Have a Dream (1963)
9. Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1964)
10. Where Do We Go from Here (1967)
11. The Trumpet of Conscience (1967)
12. Beyond Vietnam (1967)

Following are the most legendary and enlightening quotes from his speeches:

“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”
-     Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
-    Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
-     Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
-     Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love.

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
-    Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here.

“Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten….America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness—justice.”
-     Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here

“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
-      Martin Luther King, Jr., Great March on Detroit.

“To be a Negro in America is to hope against hope.”
-     Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here

“Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having your legs cut off, and then being condemned for being a cripple. It means seeing your mother and father spiritually murdered by the slings and arrows of daily exploitation, and then being hated for being an orphan.”
-      Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here

1. By Angie Fran at 22nd January, 2010

   Also, for extensive and vital quotes from a sermon Dr. King gave in 1968, download this free 2 page flyer called “The King Challenge” here.
   See if you can take to heart the words Dr. King spoke just 4 days before he was gunned down. Although these words were spoken more than 40 years ago, they are just as needed today. Please pass it on – King’s legacy and relevance to us even now. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

   Angie@WhatNewsShouldBe.org