“I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”

— Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at the Great March on Detroit (23 June 1963)

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About Martin Luther King Jr.

1929 – 1968

American Baptist minister and civil rights activist whose leadership was instrumental in the American civil rights movement. His words on justice, love, and courage endure as moral touchstones.

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

— Martin Luther King Jr.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

“No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle.”

— Winston Churchill

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”

— C.S. Lewis

“A living dog is better than a dead lion.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Ye are better than all the ballads that ever were sung or said; for ye are living poems, and all the rest are dead.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“The life of the dead is in the memory of the living.”

— Cicero

“I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”

About Martin Luther King Jr.

More from Martin Luther King Jr.

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