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.
Grief doesn't change you. It reveals you.
Looking from the window at the fantastic light and colour of my glittering fairy-world of fact that holds no tenderness, no quietude, I long suddenly for peace, for understanding.
As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.
There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties.
There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand eddies in a whirlwind.
The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It's dismissive. "I don't understand this person. So they're crazy." That's bullshit. These people are not crazy. They strong people. Maybe their environment is a little sick.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.