Martin Luther King Jr.

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

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.

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

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

It’s not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.

Children demand that their heroes should be freckleless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.

I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.

Once you truly understand that it is okay to lose or fail, you are free, you have nothing to fear, and only then, can nothing in this world hold you back.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees. Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

Where Example keeps pace with Authority, Power hardly fails to be obey’d.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.