Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Liberalism

• 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.

  Sad, Wisdom, Bad Relationship

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

• Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Country, Children

  Thomas F. Jackson, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (2007). “From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice”, p.230, University of Pennsylvania Press

• A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I'm saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Military, Years

• Liberalism provided me with an intellectual satisfaction that I never found in fundamentalism. I became so enamored of the insights of liberalism that I almost fell into the trap of accepting uncritically everything it encompassed.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Intellectual, Satisfaction, Accepting

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.151, Beacon Press

• A host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts among husbands, wives and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Husband, Children

  "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?". Book by Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967.

• With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, communism grew as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. Communism in theory emphasized a classless society, and a concern for social justice, though the world knows from sad experience that in practice it created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Practice, Class

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

• I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Thinking, Men, Optimism

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.65, Beacon Press

• Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity-thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Men, Judging

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

• Agape means recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Brother, Mean

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

• Personalism's insistence that only personality-finite and infinite-is ultimately real strengthened me in two convictions: it gave me metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Real, Philosophical

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

• Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Mean, Men

• Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Politics, Moral

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.200, Beacon Press

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