Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? - "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the idea that a nation divided in its principles cannot endure.
This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on the struggle for civil rights and the inherent contradiction in a society that allows both freedom and oppression. King suggests that true survival and unity of a nation depend on its commitment to justice and equality, and that a compromise between freedom and slavery is unsustainable.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civil rights, one might quote this to highlight the necessity of unity in the fight for equality.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value.
Power is the ability to define phenomena, and make it act in a desired manner.
Ultimately faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on which all our happiness depends cannot be found in any other way.
There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.
Even faith in God is only a stage on the way. Ultimately you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it.
A man may be in as just possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
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