Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Tragedy

• 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

• 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.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Courage, Integrity, Destiny

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

• The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Change, Kings, People

• It will be one of the tragedies of Christian history if future historians record that at the height of the twentieth century the church was one of the greatest bulwarks of white supremacy.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Christian, White, Tragedy

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

• One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Men, Practice, Bridges

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.34, Beacon Press

• Oh, the worst of all tragedies is not to die young, but to live until I am seventy five and yet not ever truly to have lived.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Life, Tragedy, Young

• 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.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Courage, Children, Light

• The Christians who engaged in infamous persecutions and shameful inquisitions were not evil men but misguided men. The churchmen who felt they had an edict from God to withstand the progress of science, whether in the form of a Copernican revolution or a Darwinian theory of natural selection, were not mischievous men but misinformed men. And so Christ's words from the cross are written in sharp-edged terms across some of the most inexpressible tragedies of history: 'They know not what they do'.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Christian, Science, Men

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