Martin Luther King Day - 2011

Monday was the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and in that, was a day of reflection.  I have run across many things this week that have given me reason to ponder and stop and reflect.  What an incredible man he was.  What a tragic loss for all of us.  The link above is rare footage from the I Have a Dream speech in Washington, DC.

The man's faith was in the the least, inspirational and his commitment sobering.  Here are a few of my favorite sayings of MLK.

“Cowardice asks the question ‘Is it safe?

Expediency asks the question ‘Is it politic?’

Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it Popular?’

But conscience asks the question ‘Is it right?’

And there comes a time when one must take a position that I neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must do it because conscience tells him to be right.”

"Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

"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."

"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."

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

"Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education."

"Let no man pull you low enough to hate him."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"Pray, and let God worry."

"The time is always right, to do what is right."

"To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing."

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.  He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.  There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.  When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” 

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

"We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means."