I’ve always been struck by the courage of the extraordinary people who worked and marched for voting rights and an end to segregation and racial discrimination in the U.S. back in the 1950s and 1960s.
Dr. King provided inspiration, counsel, leadership, and remarkable oratory to the movement. I’m not sure that today’s history books fully illustrate the enormity of the challenge he and others faced at the time.
Here are a few quotations from Dr. King about thinking, education, and making progress….
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
Resources
Site | Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
Site | MLK Day of Service
Post | Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement?
