Remembering MLK, Jr

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

A right delayed is a right denied.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. 

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

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

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

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. 

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

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

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

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. 

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul. 

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 past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. 

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 accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.