Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Opportunity
-
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.
→ -
Everyone has an opportunity to be great because everyone has an opportunity to serve.
→ -
I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity
→ -
I admire the good samaritan, but I don't want to be one.I don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed.I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health.
→ -
My place is in the sunlight of opportunity.
→ -
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
→ -
Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it.
→ -
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. . . . Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'Too late.' ... Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.
→ -
This will be the day when we shall bring into full realization the dream of American democracy - a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.
→ -
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
→ -
I often feel like saying, when I hear the question 'People aren't ready,' that it's like telling a person who is trying to swim, 'Don't jump in that water until you learn how to swim.' When actually you will never learn how to swim until you get in the water. And I think people have to have an opportunity to develop themselves and govern themselves.
→ -
I choose to identify with the underprivileged, I choose to give my life for the hungry, I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity . . . this is the way I'm going. If it means suffering, I'm going that way. If it means dying for them, I'm going that way, because I heard a voice saying DO SOMETHING FOR OTHERS.
→ -
There may come a time when it will be possible for you to humiliate your worst enemy or even to defeat him, but in order to love the enemy you must not do it... The Greek language has another word [for love]. It calls it agape. Agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men. Agape is an overflowing love, a spontaneous love, which seeks nothing in return. And theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When you rise to love on this level you love all men, not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, not because they are worthful to you, but you love all men because God loves them. And you rise to the noble heights of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. And I think this is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemies.”
→ -
We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.
→ -
Every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. Each can spell either salvation or doom.
→ -
It is precisely because education is the road to equality and citizenship, that it has been made more elusive for Negroes than many other rights. The walling off of Negroes from equal education is part of the historical design to submerge him in second class status. Therefore, as Negroes have struggled to be free they have had to fight for the opportunity for a decent education.
→ -
The white poor also suffer deprivation and the humiliation of poverty if not of color. They are chained by the weight of discrimination though its badge of degradation does not mark them. It corrupts their lives, frustrates their opportunities and withers their education. In one sense it is more evil for them because it has confused so many by prejudice that they have supported their own oppressors.
→
Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Born: January 15, 1929
- Died: April 4, 1968
- Occupation: Civil rights activist
Related Authors
-
Barack Obama 44th U.S. President -
Mahatma Gandhi Civil rights leader -
Martin Lawrence Actor -
Yolanda King Activist -
Malcolm X Human rights activist -
Rosa Parks Activist -
Jackie Robinson Baseball player -
-
Coretta Scott King Author -
Mother Teresa Saint -
John F. Kennedy 35th U.S. President -
Lyndon B. Johnson 36th U.S. President -
Martin Luther Monk -
George Washington 1st U.S. President -
Abraham Lincoln 16th U.S. President -
Martin Luther King III Advocate -
David Oyelowo Actor -
Bernice King Minister -
Nelson Mandela Former President of South Africa -
Harriet Tubman Activist