Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.

The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force.

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.

Nonviolence of the strong is infinitely braver than their violence.

Nonviolence and cowardice go ill together.

Nonviolence and cowardice go ill together. True nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.

It is claimed for satyagraha that it is a complete substitute for violence or war.

I knew A.J. Muste very well. I tried for a while to be like he was, and that is a total pacifist. But then Margot [my wife] hit me hard in the stomach one day to prove to me that I wasn't as perfect a pacifist as I thought I was.

I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails.

The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme.

As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of 'self-defense.' In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.

In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist.

Nonviolent defence presupposes recklessness about one's life and property.

Anytime you tell a man to turn the other cheek or to be nonviolent in the face of a violent enemy, you're making that man defenseless. You're robbing him of his God-given right to defend himself.

Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the repressor is tired of it and the object of satyagraha is gained.

I can't remember any text of mine where I said that one should fight Hitler without violence; I'm not an idiot.

Nonviolence is the virtue of the manly. The coward is innocent of it.

However much I may sympathise with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.

I can think about what [Mahatma] Gandhi said or [Martin Luther] King said about violence begetting violence, and still be true to my job by asking myself the question whenever we're confronted with a situation where some may be arguing for military action: Will this actually result in America being safer, or the most lives being saved?

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

Nonviolence is the most potent technique for oppressed people. Unearned suffering is redemptive.

Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.

Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.

The bravery of the nonviolent is vastly superior to that of the violent.

If the fight comes unsolicited, I am not willing to die meekly, to surrender without an effort. And that being so, am I still a pacifist?