Clergyman's

I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

I see this war as an unjust, evil, and futile war. I preach to you today on the war in Vietnam because my conscience leaves me with no other choice. The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. ""Ye shall know the truth,"" says Jesus, ""and the truth shall set you free."" Now, I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because 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.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

Tolstoy, the Russian writer, said in War and Peace: ""I cannot conceive of a man not being free unless he is dead."" While this statement sounds a bit exaggerated, it gets at a basic truth. What Tolstoy is saying in substance is that the absence of freedom is the presence of death. Any nation or government that deprives an individual of freedom is in that moment committing an act of moral and spiritual murder. Any individual who is not concerned about his freedom commits an act of moral and spiritual suicide.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

The backlash is merely the surfacing of prejudices . . . that already existed and . . . are just now starting to open.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

We want to rely upon the goodwill of those who oppose us. Indeed, we have brought forward the method of nonviolence to give an example of unilateral goodwill in an effort to evoke it in those who have not yet felt it in their hearts. But we know that if we are not simultaneously organizing our strength we will have no means to move forward. If we do not advance, the crushing burden of centuries of neglect and economic deprivation will destroy our will, our spirits and our hope. In this way, labor's historic tradition of moving forward to create vital people as consumers and citizens has become our own tradition, and for the same reasons.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

And any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that cripple the souls — the economic conditions that stagnate the soul and the city governments that may damn the soul — is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

I look at my little daughter every day and she wants certain things and when she wants them, she wants them. And she almost cries out, ""I want what I want when I want it."" She is not concerned about what I think about it or what Mrs. King thinks about it. She wants it. She's a child and that's very natural and normal for a child. She is inevitably self-centered because she's a child. But when one matures, when one rises above the early years of childhood, he begins to love people for their own sake. He turns himself to higher loyalties. He gives himself to something outside of himself. He gives himself to causes that he lives for and sometimes will even die for. He comes to the point that now he can rise above his individualistic concerns, and he understands then what Jesus meant when he says, ""He who finds his life shall lose it; he who loses his life for my sake, shall find it.""' In other words, he who finds his ego shall lose his ego, but he who loseth his ego for my sake, shall find it. And so you see people who are apparently selfish; it isn't merely an ethical issue but it is a psychological issue. They are the victims of arrested development, and they are still children. They haven't grown up. And like a modern novelist says about one of his characters, ""Edith is a little country, bounded on the east and the west, on the north and the south, by Edith."" And so many people are little countries, bounded all around by themselves and they never quite get out of themselves. And these are the persons who are victimized with arrested development.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."

There is something in this universe that justifies the biblical writer in saying, ""You shall reap what you sow."" This is a law-abiding universe. This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. If we are to make of this a better world, we've got to go back and rediscover that precious value that we've left behind.
- "Martin Luther King, Jr."