The conservatives who say, "Let us not move so fast," and the extremists who say, "Let us go out and whip the world ," would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing; for they do not reach the people who have a crying need to be free.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the futility of both extreme conservative caution and radical activism if they fail to address the genuine needs for freedom.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. critiques both conservative voices that advocate for slow progress and extremists who call for aggressive change. He points out that despite appearing to hold opposing views, both groups fail to connect with and address the needs of people seeking freedom and justice. Ultimately, he emphasizes the importance of understanding the needs of the community and acting in a way that truly supports progress.
In practice
During a discussion on social justice, you might quote this to emphasize the need for genuine action that helps those in need.
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 intolerance of the few, or the risk of it, carries the day against the wider humanity of the many.
The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth.
Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life.
I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, But now 't is little joy To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.
That is what deconstruction is made of: not the mixture but the tension between memory, fidelity, the preservation of something that has been given to us, and, at the same time, heterogeneity, something absolutely new, and a break.
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