Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.

If you haven't found something worth dying for, you're not fit to live.

This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

I need to hold onto my soul and my integrity, and I can't compromise that.

I play guys who are willing to go really far. If the dung really hits the fan, I don't know if I could walk the talk. But anyone who isn't willing to die for his convictions isn't worth living. My characters, no matter how demented they are, they have their convictions.

The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there.

I can't write what I don't believe in.

I believe in pursuing my own morality. That is all I have ever stuck by. It is my own morality that really matters.

The price tag for principles is sometimes much higher than what’s on the table in terms of dollars and cents.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice.

Principles, convictions and motives are neither sold nor bargained for!

I do everything I do to glorify God.

Courage is being true to yourself, true to a sense of integrity.

We manifest character when self-sacrifice for the sake of our principles becomes more important than compromise for the sake of popularity.

he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different.

Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it

It takes courage for people to listen to their own goodness and act on it.

Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great cause more than life itself.

I've seen of enough of people who die for an idea. I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned it can be murderous. What interests me is living and dying for what one loves.

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.

Give death a better name or die trying.

It is much more difficult to live for nonviolence than to die for it.

When a person tries to act in accordance with his conscience, when he tries to speak the truth, when he tries to behave like a citizen, even in conditions where citizenship is degraded, it won't necessarily lead anywhere, but it might. There's one thing, however, that will never lead anywhere, and that is speculating that such behavior will lead somewhere.

Let hundreds like me perish, but let truth triumph.