Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

My parents were active in the anti-war movement in the 1960s, so I grew up with a tradition of civic activism around our dinner table and going to different marches for different causes.

I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating. A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved. We can through violence burn down a building, but you can't establish justice. You can murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder through violence. You can murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. And what we're trying to get rid of is hate, injustice, and all of these other things that continue the long night of man's inhumanity to man.

Those who seek to improve our country through peaceful protest and protected speech, I want you to know that your voice is important. Do not be discouraged by those who use your lawful actions as a cover for their heinous violence. We will continue to safeguard your constitutional rights and to work with you in the difficult mission of building a better nation and a brighter future.

There is no hope for the aching world except through the narrow and straight path of nonviolence.

[People] don't see that there's a great deal of a difference between nonresistance to evil and nonviolent resistance.

We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.

Non violence means people in action. People have to understand that with non-violence goes a hell of a lot of organization.

I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all.

The answer to violence is even more democracy, even more humanity...

I feel this is very much our spiritual and political duty to be part of every peace table, it has often been the case that citizenry -- women and men -- can make progress when it is not possible for the officials to be able to meet at that moment in time.

Sometimes you must live in a violent world in order to get greater justice.

When you hear me say "by any means necessary," I mean exactly that. I believe in anything that is necessary to correct unjust conditions-political, economic, social, physical, anything that is necessary.

Nonviolence is the only way. Even if you achieve your goal by violent means there are always side effects, and these can be worse than the problem. Violence is against human nature.

Each of us contributes our own piece to the whole, each in our own way, each in our own time with the gifts and talents that are ours. You ask about possible vehicles for change: question, stand, speak, act. Engage in unruly behavior. Disturb the status quo. Take direct action. Commit civil disobedience. Make art. Build community. Dance. Sing. Farm. Cook. Create something beautiful and then give it away. Find your own monkey wrench and use it with the force of love. Sharpen your pencil. Vote.

My mission is to convert every Indian, every Englishman and finally the world to nonviolence for regulating mutual relations, whether political, economic, social or religious.

nonviolence first changes the individual.

Non-violence is a very powerful weapon. Most people don't understand the power of non-violence and tend to be amazed by the whole idea. Those who have been involved in bringing about change and see the difference between violence and non-violence are firmly committed to a lifetime of non-violence, not because it is easy or because it is cowardly, but because it is an effective and very powerful way.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action.

I want to continue to speak out on issues that matter to me. I want to have even more of a voice.

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

Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.

It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.

The principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites-Acquiescence and violence -while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both.

Nonviolent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement, not replace, the progress of change. It was the way to divest himself of passivity without arraying himself in vindictive force.