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If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

— Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

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Slavery

More quotes by Martin Luther King Jr.

It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

Strength to Love (1963)

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.

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

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.

All Martin Luther King Jr. quotes →

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

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The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.

James Connolly

The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.

Abraham Lincoln

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Martin Luther King Jr. (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.