As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.
If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.
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.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
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