10 Thoughts From a Late Great

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr, here are 10 quotes that are my favorites.

1. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.


2. A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.


3. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.


4. Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.


5. At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.


6. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.


7. Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.


8. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.


9. 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.


10. I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.