Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Civil disobedience is the only nonviolent escape from the soul-destroying heat of violence.

I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent all the time. I'd say, okay, let's get with it, we'll all be nonviolent. But I don't go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody's going to be nonviolent. If they make the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. If they make the White Citizens Council nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. But as long as you've got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don't want anybody coming to me talking any nonviolent talk.

Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.

In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist.

I have no weapon but nonviolence.

Nonviolence cannot be learnt by staying at home.

Palestine has a very strong nonviolent movement.

Nonviolence is pretty ballsy, pretty advanced weaponry.

There is a need for a movement of non-violent direct action.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all.

The force generated by nonviolence is infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's ingenuity.

Nonviolence is the rock on which the whole structure of non-co-operation is built.

We're not really pacifists, we're nonviolent soldiers.

No man could be actively nonviolent and not rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred.

The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.

I hold that the world is sick of armed rebellions.

Non-violence has suffered its biggest defeat in the hands of people who most want to talk about it.

We must treat arrest as the normal condition of the life of a non-co-operator.

Nonviolent non-co-operation, I am convinced, is a sacred duty at times.

My interest in India's freedom will cease if she adopts violent means, for their fruit will not be freedom but slavery in disguise.

I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self.

There is an alternative to war. It's staying in bed and growing your hair.

Nonviolent non-co-operation is the only alternative to anarchy and worse.

The real test of nonviolence lies in its being brought in contact with those who have contempt for it.