Talk:Martin Luther King, Jr.

From Wikiquote

Jump to: navigation, search

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Martin Luther King, Jr. article.


Contents

[edit] Vandalism

theres nothing clever about someone destroying a website i like cake

[edit] Quote on Zionism

This quote on Zionism has been widely exposed as a hoax; even the far-right/pro-Israel group CAMERA admits that this is "apparently" a hoax. No such quote can be turned up in MLK's collected works at the center in Atlanta, etc. etc.

Don't know what ideologue is putting this crap here, but no thanks, please. I'll be removing the quotes now. Thesobrietysrule 09:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

He did say "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.". The "Letter to an Ani-Zionist Friend" is, however, a hoax (though try not to show your bias with labeling CAMERA "far-right" when it is not. Words have meaning. 24.147.169.187 17:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
[“The Socialism of Fools: The Left, the Jews and Israel” by Seymour Martin Lipset; in Encounter magazine, December 1969, p. 24.]

Here is the source of the quote. Check this source before deleting it.--Sefringle 03:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A little change

I changed "African-American civil rights activist" to "black civil rights activist" in this article, because Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist for all black people, not just the African ones.


--RavenStorm 20:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


I don't really see the difference I'm sorry, could you please explain it? --84.146.238.189 17:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert (and not involved in editing this page, I was just reading), but I believe that black includes people from, say, Haiti or Jamaica who have moved to the US. They are also dark-skinned and appear "African-American" but since they are not from Africa (at least not directly), it is incorrect to call them "African-American" and actually more correct to call them "black". (I have an American friend of Jamaican descent who explains this to people a lot, haha)

[edit] Is this quote really from MLK?

"If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer."

Does anybody here know? -- 21:09, 13 November 2006 (GMT+1)

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." This quote is from the German Martin Luther not Martin Luther King jr. 85.179.170.97 21:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

This quote has now been moved into the "Misattributed" section. ~ Kalki 23:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bonhoeffer Quote

"If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer."

Why was this deleted? If it`s not by MLK, at least move it to misatributed, since alot of people seem to think it is.

—This unsigned comment is by 85.178.247.94 (talk • contribs) .

It is doubtful that Martin Luther King would say this. He believed in a Beloved Community, a concept derived from Josiah Royce. Royce believed in Loyalty even at the price of losing. King was loyal to nonviolence. Bonhoeffer contradicts King's loyal commitment.

—This unsigned comment is by 68.34.167.137 (talk • contribs) .
The rationale above for stating the quote was unlikely to have been said by King seems hardly relevant or coherent, but the quote in question was moved into the section on this page for unsourced quotes, simply because there are no published sources of this yet found, and as part of what is becoming the normal procedure for handling unsourced quotes. ~ Kalki 00:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Over-Bolding

The extensive use of bolding here seems to also be somewhat slanted in what is chosen for bolding. I'd rather see most of the arbitrary bolding removed. --Kynn 05:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced

  • You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry...Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong...with capitalism...There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.

said to be part of a speech in front of his staff, Frogmore, South Carolina, November 14, 1966.

  • A riot is, at bottom, the language of the unheard.
  • All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
  • All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
  • Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
  • At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
  • Blood may have to flow in the streets of Montgomery before we attain our freedom, but that blood should be our blood, and not that of the white man
    • Speech, 1956
  • Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
  • Everybody can be great ... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
  • Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
  • Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
  • I fear that I am integrating my people into a burning house.
    • In response to Harry Belafonte's inquiry as to what was troubling Dr. King.
  • Forgiveness is not an occasional habit, it is a permanent attitude
  • Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
  • 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.
  • He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
  • History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
    • Variant: We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
  • Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
  • I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
  • I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream — a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.
  • Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.
  • I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
  • I've been beaten so many times, I've become immune to it.
  • If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
  • If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
  • If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
  • If you haven't found something to live for you better find something to die for.
  • If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
  • If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people - a black people - who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization."
  • If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.
  • In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.
  • It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
  • It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
  • It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
  • Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
  • Let no one drive you so low as to hate him.
  • 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 friend.
  • Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
  • Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
  • Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
  • Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
  • Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
  • Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.
  • Our scientific powers have outrun our spiritual powers; we have guided missiles and mis-guided men.
  • Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
  • People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not properly communicated.
  • Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
  • 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.
  • Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, "Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary."
  • Science investigates, religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.
  • Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
  • The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
  • 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 greatest sin of our time is not the few who have destroyed but the vast majority who sat idly by.
  • The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
  • The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
  • The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
  • The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.
  • The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
  • The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
  • The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
  • There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
  • Throw us into jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence at midnight hour to beat us till we are half-dead, and we shall still love you. Be assured that we shall wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your hearts and conscience that we shall win you over in the process and our victory shall be a double victory.
  • True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
  • Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys a community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
  • We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
  • We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
    • In this quote, Dr. King is apparently paraphrasing President Calvin Coolidge, who in an address, entitled "Toleration and Liberalism," to the American Legion Convention at Omaha on Oct. 6, 1925, said: "No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat." See Coolidge's Foundations of the Republic (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926), p. 298. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.24.210.51 (talk)
      • Either that, or it is just a misattribution of something King never said. ~ Ningauble 20:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
  • We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
  • We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
  • We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.
  • 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.
  • We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
  • We must use time creatively — and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.
  • We see men as Jews and Gentiles, Chinese or Americans, Protestants or Catholics. We fail to see in them the same basic stuff as we, and molded in that same Divine Image
  • We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
  • We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our ability to endure suffering.
  • What do they [Vietnam] think as we test our new weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe?
  • When evil men plot, good men must plan; when evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind; when evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love; where evil men will seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice
  • When for decades you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with a cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon and says: ‘Punish me! I do not deserve it, but because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the whole world would know I am right and you are wrong!!’ you hardly know what to do. You know that this man is as good a man as you are and that from some mysterious source, he has found the courage and conviction to meet physical force with soul-force.
  • When the history books of the future are written, they would say: ‘Once upon a time, there lived a good people in Montgomery who did what was right’, and from this moment there can be no turning back
    • Speech, 1956; this needs a definite date.
  • Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Martin_Luther_King,_Jr."