Skip to main content

Martin Luther King Quotes

Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that.
- Bono

I was a child when the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King occurred, and I wanted to hear what was going on. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to contribute in the best way I possibly could.
- Andre Braugher

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.
- David Cameron

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back - but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.
- Marian Wright Edelman

I want to be like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon... but I want to stay alive.
- Madonna Ciccone

If Rosa Parks had not refused to move to the back of the bus, you and I might never have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King.
- Ramsey Clark

One day after laying a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr., President Bush appoints a federal judge who has built his career around dismantling Dr. King's legacy.
- Hillary Clinton

Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't carry just a piece of cloth to symbolize his belief in racial equality; he carried the American flag.
- Adrian Cronauer

I figure if Doc is right about the time I have left,I should wrap up my adolescence in the next few days, get into my early productive stages about the third week of school, go through my midlife crisis during Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, redouble my efforts at productivity and think about my legacy, say, Easter, and start cashing in my 401(k)s a couple weeks before Memorial Day.
- Chris Crutcher

Obama has little or nothing to do with the civil-rights movement. His roots are in Kenya, and he is shaped far more by anti-colonialism than by anything that Martin Luther King said or did.
- Dinesh Dsouza

That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King, Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that being alive is a crock of shit.
- Kurt Vonnegut

I'm Martin Luther King Jr and I don't approve of this website as a source for my quotes.
- Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.
- Barney Frank

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
- Morgan Freeman

Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.
- Morgan Freeman

Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same.
- Henry Louis Gates

Whether you're president or speaker, if you're wrong, we need to stand up and point it out. That's what Martin Luther King had talked about: being judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. So some of us pounded away on some of the ridiculous policies of Pelosi - and lo and behold, over time, the public began to see.
- Louie Gohmert

A calling is you feel - you look out and see the need - maybe it's the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it's the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was - felt called.
- Billy Graham

I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.
- Dick Gregory

Like Martin Luther King Jr., Frankie dreamed of living in a nation where people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The sonner she realized that dream, the sooner she could get started on Katy Perry's and live the teenage one.
- Lisi Harrison

What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays' Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it's down to us.
- Jim Hightower

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.
- David Horowitz

I think all of us thought that by the '70s, at the latest the '80s, all the world's problems would be solved and everyone would be getting along fine. And instead we saw that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy died. We saw that it was going to be a lot more difficult than I think we had thought.
- Janis Ian

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.
- Jayz

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
- Jayz

Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.
- Christopher Judge

I'm the Ali of today. I'm the Marvin Gaye of today. I'm the Bob Marley of today. I'm the Martin Luther King, or all the other greats that have come before us. And a lot of people are starting to realise that now.
- R Kelly

My daddy, Rev. A. D. King, my granddaddy, Martin Luther King, Senior - we are a family of faith, hope and love.
- Alveda King

Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top: I want to take us to the bank.
- Don King

We wouldn't be as far along as a country if we didn't take on some of Martin Luther King's ways that he instilled in us.
- Rodney King

People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don't do this and don't do that. But it's hard to live up to some people's expectations.
- Rodney King

When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston, there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, Malcolm X was alive; great, great leaders were emerging from the southern freedom movement.
- Jonathan Kozol

The greatest difference between now and 1964, when I began teaching, is that public policy has pretty much eradicated the dream of Martin Luther King.
- Jonathan Kozol

I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon but i want to STAY ALIVE.
- Madonna

We don't really know who killed Martin Luther King. We don't really know who killed Bobby Kennedy. We don't really know who killed John Kennedy. We don't really know who killed Tupac Shakur.
- Cynthia Mckinney

Tommy moved on. Lash, your people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. It's time to strike back. Look, you don't have your MBA yet - they haven't completely juiced you of your usefulness yet. Would Martin Luther King back down from this challenge? Malcolm X? James Brown? Don't you have a dream? Don't you feel good, like you knew that you would, now?
- Christopher Moore

What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.
- Rand Paul

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy, nonviolence and racial justice.
- Mark Pryor

I'm an admirer of everything Dr. Martin Luther King stood for, but I don't think he would have stood for this
- Andy Rooney

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my personal heroes.
- Ken Salazar

I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
- Carlos Santana

Each year on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth, America has the opportunity to reflect on our nation's progress towards the realization of his dream.
- Adam Schiff

Martin Luther King Jr., recognized bias when he saw it, knew what he was talking about.
- Jack Schwartz

The rage was in me, and if it wasn't for the rage, then I wouldn't know how to be calm. They feed off of each other. Just like when Malcolm X fed off Martin Luther King. They needed each other.
- Gary Sheffield

I have been inspired by Martin Luther King and how he inspired a movement. I have learned that a cause must be organic; if it is to have an impact it must belong to those who join the movement and not those who lead it.
- Simon Sinek

It's great having Bruce Springsteen on my show. We have so much in common! We're both from New Jersey, just from different neighborhoods. Sort of like how Martin Luther King and Margaret Mitchell both came from Atlanta. But from different neighborhoods.
- Jon Stewart

Pigmentation was a quick and convenient way of judging a person. One of us, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once proposed we instead judge people by the content of their character. He was shot.
- Jon Stewart

I marched back then - I was in a civil-rights musical, Fly Blackbird, and we met Martin Luther King.
- George Takei

I think it's a good thing for a president or political leaders to want to put their values or their faith into action. Desmond Tutu did that in South Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. did that here. This is a good thing.
- Jim Wallis

Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.
- Jim Wallis

One of the greatest men to ever walk this land was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His life exemplified unity by bringing people together for the good of all. In any small way I hope to someday bring people together like Dr. King.
- Zack Wamp

Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was.
- Diane Watson

You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That's what Martin Luther King told me.
- Lil Wayne

We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.
- Cornel West

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bass Player Quotes

I always just wanted to be the singer or the bass player in the band. I'd love to have a band, where I was obviously the singer, but where it wasn't me, it wasn't my name. - Bryan Adams In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead. - David Amram I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally. - Ken Burns Jack Bruce, as soon as I saw him, it changed me. I didn't even know what bass players did until I saw Cream. - Geezer Butler Bass players are always the intellectual kind, but nobody knows it. - Stanley Clarke There are a lot of people who can do it on the guitar and sing at the same t...

Fat Person Quotes

She was convinced that she was anorexic, because every time she looked in the mirror she did indeed see a fat person. - Terry Pratchett I sensed immediately that he'd once been overweight. He moved with a fat person's tiptoey apology. - Jennifer Egan I feel self-conscious calling my cat fat in front of a fat person, considering I'm skinny and inconsiderate. - Jarod Kintz I call myself a FFP: former fat person, and when you're an FFP, you will always see in yourself what people used to bully you for. - Kelly Osbourne Well you know, it's true that as a fat person I run a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and a number of other things. But guess what? The amount of that risk is almost infinitessimal! - Daniel Pinkwater