Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.

You don't have to be a rock star - if you don't like the situation you're in, you don't have to settle for it.

If we really want liberty - if we really want liberty - then we need to go out and get it, we need to take it, because nobody is going to give it to us. And we need to do it now.

It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors.

You know, you can only get beat up so much. And then you turn it around, and you're like, OK, we're not taking this anymore.

At a certain point, when there's a barrier between you and what's right, eventually you have to decide you're not going to allow yourself to be subjugated.

We're not trying to take power away or rule anybody - we're just trying to get up from under the rulers.

When people made up their minds that they wanted to be free and took action, then there was a change.

When you challenge other people's ideas of who or how you should be, they may try to diminish and disgrace you. It can happen in small ways in hidden places, or in big ways on a world stage. You can spend a lifetime resenting the tests, angry about the slights and the injustices. Or, you can rise above it.

I am not yet born; O fill me with strength against those who would freeze my humanity.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

People have to liberate themselves, because liberation is not a single act. It's a question of eternal vigilance. Otherwise, you'll just become enslaved by someone else.

Even in the darkest regions, people have discovered their right of freedom.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

Writing is powerful. Whether it's a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change.

When there is a huge force pressing down on freedoms, sub-cultures with more creativity and power are likely to form.

Who ever walked behind anyone to freedom? If we can't go hand in hand, I don't want to go.

I try to find hope in struggle and resistance in small places as much as I can.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree.

Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it.

They have learned that resistance is actually possible. The holds are beginning to slip away.