Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Non-violence exacts a very high price from one who practices it. But once you are able to meet that demand then you can do most things.

My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving the dear ones unprotected.

Nonviolence is impossible without humility.

Nonviolence requires great patience.

Nonviolence is a quality not of the body but of the soul.

A person who believes in nonviolence believes in a living God. He cannot accept defeat.

The path of those who preach love, and not hatred, is not easy. They often have to wear a crown of thorns.

Nonviolence, in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering.

Nonviolence is an attribute of the Almighty whose ways of fulfilling Himself are inscrutable.

My love for nonviolence is superior to every other thing, mundane or super mundane.

At the centre of nonviolence is a force which is self-acting.

Nonviolence is absolute respect for each human being.

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

We must follow nonviolence and love.

Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort.

There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest.

The votaries of nonviolence cannot harbour violence even in thought, let alone the question of doing it.

Nonviolence is an active force of the highest order. It is soul force or the power of the godhead within us.

I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent all the time. I'd say, okay, let's get with it, we'll all be nonviolent. But I don't go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody's going to be nonviolent. If they make the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. If they make the White Citizens Council nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. But as long as you've got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don't want anybody coming to me talking any nonviolent talk.

Nonviolence is a method that transforms, first of all, the individual once you understand it and embrace it. It begins with you and, if you can, about transforming individuals so that they love unconditionally.

Leo Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non­resistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self­suffering.

Nonviolence to be worth anything has to work in the face of hostile forces.

The real test of nonviolence lies in its being brought in contact with those who have contempt for it.