Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.

Gandhi protested against restrictive policies. So did 'Guru.'

Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

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.

To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy.

Civil disobedience is not something outside the realm of democracy. Democracy requires civil disobedience. Without civil disobedience democracy does not exist.

Resisting is worth doing.

It is better to protest than to accept injustice.

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

When I first went to jail in 1960 with seven classmates trying to use their public library against the backdrop of my father being a veteran of World War II, not being able to use - having to sit behind Nazi on American military bases, I lost my fear of jails and death.

Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.

Acceptance does not mean that you placidly acquiesce to the myriad injustices that are all around you. In fact, that you are incensed about these injustices is the very reason you need to try your level best to 'right' these 'wrongs.'

I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.

A movement that doesn't produce a backlash isn't much of a movement at all.

I’ve never been involved in a Civil Rights campaign that was not ill-timed

He apologizes for injustice …. Belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions…. He should be unceasingly and firmly opposed.

I would have felt ashamed if I had not been part of the resistance and part of fighting back against the forces of the state.

MLK, Jr. taught me how to say no to segregation, and I can hear him saying now... when you straighten up your back, no man can ride you. He said stand up straight and say no to racial discrimination.

It's always important, when we experience injustice in this nation, that people in power understand that we will not take that injustice quietly.

As long as the superstition that people should obey unjust laws exists, so long will slavery exist

I don't want tea, I want justice!

No man could be actively nonviolent and not rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

Sometimes there's truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.