Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.

To permit ourselves to be provoked into violence would mean defeating ourselves; our real power is in our solidarity and our capacity to endure suffering rather than to give up the fight for the right to organize; no one can weave wool with machine guns; that cheerfulness was better for morale than bitterness and that therefore we would smile as we passed the machine guns and the police on the way from the hall to the picket lines around the mills.

The use of violence in our struggle would be both impractical and immoral. To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.

Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength, and there is nothing automatic or intuitive about the resoluteness required for using non-violent methods in political struggle and the quest for Truth.

Somebody must have sense enough to meet hate with love. Somebody must have sense enough to meet physical force with soul force. If we will but try this way, we will be able to change these conditions and yet at the same time win the hearts and souls of those who have kept these conditions alive a way as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth, as modern as the techniques of Mohandas K. Gandhi. There is another way.

A person who has truly realized the principle of nonviolence has the God given strength for his weapon, and the world has not yet known anything that can match it.

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

I would go to war with words, not weapons. I would die talking before I lifted a weapon.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Then I despair... I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always.

Die if you must, but never kill.

Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

My satyagrahi spirit tells me that I may not retaliate.

Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha.

Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within.

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

The strength to kill is not essential for self-defense; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who by dying with courage and compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent opponents.

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

Turning the other cheek isn't submissive. It's defiant.

The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.

In the code of the satyagrahi, there is no such thing as surrender to brute force.

Nonviolence or soul force does not need physical aids for its propagation of effect.

Civil disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering.

Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms.

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