Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Liberty

• An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Motivational, Respect, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Direct Action

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• A piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings...unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible--we have it all, or we are not free.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Liberty, Doe, Pieces

• I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Freedom, Believe

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.117, Beacon Press

• There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Men, Law, Libertarian Party

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

• In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Fall, Men, Pursuit Of Happiness

  I Have a Dream, delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

• The nation is sick; trouble is in the land, confusion all around...But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: 'We want to be free.'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  New York, Stars, Dark

  I've Been to the Mountaintop, delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

• In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jobs, Real, Men

  Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1989). “The trumpet of conscience”, HarperCollins

• I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Cells, Wind, Creative

  I Have a Dream, delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

• 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.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Fighting, Opportunity, Equality

• The Negro has no room to make any substantial compromises because his store of advantages is too small. He must press unrelentingly for quality, integrated education or his whole drive for freedom will be undermined by the absence of a most vital and indispensable element - learning.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Liberty, Quality, Elements

• I have a dream... I have a dream today... And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Freedom, America

• My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Country, Sweet, Father

  I Have a Dream, delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

• We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Men, Eight, Black

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

You May Also Like:

Malcolm X

Mahatma Gandhi

Nelson Mandela

Rosa Parks

Martin Luther King III

Coretta Scott King

Martin Luther