Quotes about Morality
The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But...the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, Wait on time.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (from Rediscovering Lost Values)
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right....
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.