Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Silence

We have collected for you the TOP of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s best quotes about Silence! Here are collected all the quotes about Silence starting from the birthday of the Civil rights activist – January 15, 1929! We hope you will be inspired to new achievements with our constantly updated collection of quotes. At the moment, this page contains 2 sayings of Martin Luther King, Jr. about Silence. We will be happy if you share our collection of quotes with your friends on social networks!
All quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.: 4th Of July Abundance Abuse Acceptance Activism Adversity Affirmations Age Aids Altruism American Dream Anger Animals Apathy Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Being Strong Belief Betrayal Birds Birth Bitterness Black History Blindness Bones Brotherhood Brothers Brothers And Sisters Bus Business Cancer Capital Punishment Capitalism Challenges Change Changing The World Chaos Character Charity Children Choices Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience Civil Rights Civil Rights Movement Coffee College Commitment Communism Community Compassion Conflict Conscience Constitution Country Courage Creation Creativity Crime Criticism Culture Darkness Death Death Penalty Decisions Declaration Of Independence Defeat Democracy Destiny Determination Difficulty Dignity Disappointment Discipline Discrimination Diversity Doom Dreams Drinking Drugs Dying Earth Eating Economics Economy Education Effort Emotions Encouragement Enemies Energy Equal Rights Equality Ethics Evil Excellence Exploitation Extremism Eyes Failing Fairness Faith Fathers Fear Feelings Fighting Forgiveness Freedom Friendship Frustration Fun Generosity Genius Giving Giving Back Giving Up Glory Goals God Goodness Grace Greatness Growth Guilt Guns Hard Work Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell Helping Others Hills History Home Hope Human Dignity Human Nature Human Rights Humanity Humility Hunger Hurt Ideology Ignorance Independence Injustice Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jazz Jesus Jesus Christ Judging Justice Justification Knowledge Labor Language Leadership Learning Leaving Legacy Liars Liberalism Liberty Life Love Love And Hate Love Life Loyalty Lying Madness Making A Difference Mankind Marriage Materialism Military Mistakes Money Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Moving Forward Myth Negotiation Neighbors Non Violence Nonviolence Opinions Opportunity Oppression Optimism Overcoming Pain Passion Past Patriotism Peace Persistence Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Pleasure Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prejudice Procrastination Progress Property Protest Public Service Purpose Quality Racism Rage Reality Reconciliation Recovery Redemption Religion Religious Freedom Respect Responsibility Revenge Revolution Righteousness Rings Riots Risk Running Sacrifice Sad Salvation School Science Science And Religion Security Segregation Self Esteem Self Respect Serving Others Shame Silence Sin Skins Slavery Slaves Social Change Social Justice Socialism Society Son Songs Sorrow Soul Spirituality Strength Struggle Study Success Suffering Surrender Survival Survivor Teachers Teaching Temptation Time Today Torture Tragedy Transformation True Friends Truth Tyranny Uncertainty Unconditional Love Understanding Unity Universe Values Victory Vietnam War Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Volunteerism Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Welfare Winning Wisdom Work Worship Writing Yoga Youth more...
  • The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

  • The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

    "A Time to Break Silence". Speech at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City, www.deanza.edu. April 04, 1967.
  • The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends

  • I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.

    "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam". Sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, April 30, 1967.
  • A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift, is approaching spiritual death.I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor.

    Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City
  • History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

    "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963
  • A time comes when silence is betrayal.

    "Beyond Vietnam". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech at Riverside Church in New York City, kinginstitute.stanford.edu. April 4, 1967.
  • It is a strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

    "The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings".
  • It's not the violence of the few that scares me, it's the silence of the many

  • History will have to recordThat the greatest tragedy of this period of social transitionWas not the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad peopleBut the appalling silence and indifference of the good.Our generation will have to repent notOnly for the words and actions of the children of darknessBut also for the fears and apathy of thechildren of light.

  • History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

    Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume
  • The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad people

  • Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters.

  • A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought, within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.

    Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City
  • On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. "A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.119, Beacon Press
  • I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.

  • We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.96, Beacon Press
  • Our generation will not have regretted both perverse crimes, and the eerie silence of the kind

  • Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

    "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
  • In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

    "The Trumpet of Conscience". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s steeler lecture at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes about: 4th Of July Abundance Abuse Acceptance Activism Adversity Affirmations Age Aids Altruism American Dream Anger Animals Apathy Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Being Strong Belief Betrayal Birds Birth Bitterness Black History Blindness Bones Brotherhood Brothers Brothers And Sisters Bus Business Cancer Capital Punishment Capitalism Challenges Change Changing The World Chaos Character Charity Children Choices Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience Civil Rights Civil Rights Movement Coffee College Commitment Communism Community Compassion Conflict Conscience Constitution Country Courage Creation Creativity Crime Criticism Culture Darkness Death Death Penalty Decisions Declaration Of Independence Defeat Democracy Destiny Determination Difficulty Dignity Disappointment Discipline Discrimination Diversity Doom Dreams Drinking Drugs Dying Earth Eating Economics Economy Education Effort Emotions Encouragement Enemies Energy Equal Rights Equality Ethics Evil Excellence Exploitation Extremism Eyes Failing Fairness Faith Fathers Fear Feelings Fighting Forgiveness Freedom Friendship Frustration Fun Generosity Genius Giving Giving Back Giving Up Glory Goals God Goodness Grace Greatness Growth Guilt Guns Hard Work Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell Helping Others Hills History Home Hope Human Dignity Human Nature Human Rights Humanity Humility Hunger Hurt Ideology Ignorance Independence Injustice Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jazz Jesus Jesus Christ Judging Justice Justification Knowledge Labor Language Leadership Learning Leaving Legacy Liars Liberalism Liberty Life Love Love And Hate Love Life Loyalty Lying Madness Making A Difference Mankind Marriage Materialism Military Mistakes Money Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Moving Forward Myth Negotiation Neighbors Non Violence Nonviolence Opinions Opportunity Oppression Optimism Overcoming Pain Passion Past Patriotism Peace Persistence Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Pleasure Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prejudice Procrastination Progress Property Protest Public Service Purpose Quality Racism Rage Reality Reconciliation Recovery Redemption Religion Religious Freedom Respect Responsibility Revenge Revolution Righteousness Rings Riots Risk Running Sacrifice Sad Salvation School Science Science And Religion Security Segregation Self Esteem Self Respect Serving Others Shame Silence Sin Skins Slavery Slaves Social Change Social Justice Socialism Society Son Songs Sorrow Soul Spirituality Strength Struggle Study Success Suffering Surrender Survival Survivor Teachers Teaching Temptation Time Today Torture Tragedy Transformation True Friends Truth Tyranny Uncertainty Unconditional Love Understanding Unity Universe Values Victory Vietnam War Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Volunteerism Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Welfare Winning Wisdom Work Worship Writing Yoga Youth

Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • Born: January 15, 1929
  • Died: April 4, 1968
  • Occupation: Civil rights activist