The late Dr. King has always been one of my heroes and a strong inspiration in the colored community. I couldn’t pick a favorite MLK quote so I’m posting all the ones that have the most meaning to me:
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”
-Above quotes are from Strength to Love, 1963
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
“[I]t is necessary to understand that Black Power is a cry of disappointment. The Black Power slogan did not spring full grown from the head of some philosophical Zeus. It was born from the wounds of despair and disappointment. It is a cry of daily hurt and persistent pain.”
-Above quotes are from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
I’ve used the following from time to time to remind myself:
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
