The quotations of

Martin Luther King Jr.

American Baptist minister and civil rights leader

1929–1968

84 quotes, most often on Race, War & Peace and Love.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
I Have a Dream (1963)
- Race
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.
The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)
- Race
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.
- Race
- Slavery
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
- Race
Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.
- Race
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
- Race
It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement (1967)
- Race
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
I Have a Dream (1963)
- Race
Segregation is wrong because it is a system of adultery perpetuated by an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.
Cobo Center speech (1963)
- Justice
- Race
We must stand up and say, “I’m black and I’m beautiful,” and this self-affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
- Race
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
“I Have a Dream”, March on Washington (28 August 1963)
- Hope
- Race
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
“I Have a Dream”, March on Washington (28 August 1963)
- Freedom
- Race
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
“Beyond Vietnam”, Riverside Church, New York (4 April 1967)

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