Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.

Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.

Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally, divest myself.

When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

Civil disobedience is the right of all men when we believe breaking man's law is needed to preserve God's law.

The legal grounds are not near as important as the moral and political grounds, and I can use the courts till you can step on my beard.

Anyone who takes it upon himself ... to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.

A community has not ceased to be essentially law-abiding merely because it refuses to practice literal obedience. There is such a thing as orderly disobedience to a statute, a disobedience which is open, frankly avowed, and in conformity with the general sense of what is reasonable

When demonstrators are being civilly disobedient, they will in most cases be given a chance to adhere to the law before being arrested, and then if necessary, they will be arrested in a non-violent manner.

One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.

A time comes when silence is betrayal.

Violence becomes imperative when an attempt is made to assert rights without any reference to duties.

Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies.

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke.

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience... But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.

All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.

Forget the laws. If the laws don't make sense, if they run contrary to your conscience, you have to disobey them.