Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

You cannot just change regimes; you have to change mindsets.

Great institutions can only be reformed by stealth or by revolution.

This is only a preliminary step toward a similar revolution everywhere.

Ending educational inequality is going to require systemic change and a long-term, sustained effort. There are no shortcuts and no silver bullets.

For me, 'revolution' simply means radical change.

Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.

There is complete disdain for all that exists .... History, society, and the economics of present institutions are all minor issues in choosing a reform program ...

Forming the new society within the shell of the old.

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution.

The period of radical reform is finished.

I feel like a serious revolution needs to take place in order for human beings to evolve in a way where we can truly exist as a society.

We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society.

Old, deeply engrained systems take time to change, but we can't leave it to time.

Until we start thinking in terms of revolution instead of compromise the Church will continue to pat itself on the back with token steps of renewal.

I think people look at revolution too much in terms of power. I think revolution has to be seen more anthropologically, in terms of transitions from one mode of life to another.

It's time to tear up the canvas and start over. It's time for the overhaul of humanity.

No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood, until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change.

When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.

I think that revolution means change. And if somebody feels like there's nothing wrong, everything's great even when it ain't, why would they ask for a revolution? Just stick the tubes into me and just pump away.

Unlike mainstream civil rights groups, which merely sought integration of blacks into the existing order, SNCC sought structural changes in American society itself.

Every reform means awakening. Once truly awakened, the nation will not be satisfied with reform only in one department of life.

Neither one of us believe that you can fix the culture from within by just throwing money and people at the system. There has to be a systemic change within the system.

I get up every morning and think, today I'm going to make a difference. Today I'm going to end capitalism. Today I'm going to make a revolution. I go to bed every night disappointed but I'm back to work tomorrow, and that's the only way you can do it.

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

Every revolution begins as consciousness because some group of people has to imagine change. You have to have the idea of change or at least have a hope before you can proceed. And that stage goes very quickly because a contagion of consciousness is within your control. But when you get to the stage of institutional change, it becomes a much slower process.