Martin Luther King Jr In His Own Words

Today being the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I thought that in a spirit of bi-partisanship I would cite quotations from Dr. King included in Elizabeth Dole’s book, Hearts Touched With Fire.

CHARACTER
“Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

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

EDUCATION and TEACHERS
“Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”

FAITH
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

PERSEVERANCE
“You ought to believe in something in life and believe that thing so fervently that you will stand up for it till the end of your days.”

SERVICE and GENEROSITY
“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

LEADERSHIP
“A good leader is not a searcher of consensus, but a molder of consensus.”

WORK
“No work is insignificant. All work that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance, and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all host of heaven and earth will pause to say, ’Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well’.”