I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.
Interpretation
Noncooperation with evil is as essential a moral duty as cooperating with good.
Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasizes the importance of actively resisting evil in society, arguing that turning a blind eye to wrongdoing is not a neutral stance but a moral failing. He acknowledges the influence of Henry David Thoreau, whose ideas on civil disobedience inspire individuals to engage in creative forms of protest against injustice.
In practice
During a speech at a civil rights rally to encourage active resistance against injustice.
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.
I think my biggest achievement is that, after going through a rather difficult time, I consider myself comparatively sane.
Never was the victory of patience more complete than in the early church. The anvil broke the hammer by bearing all the blows that the hammer could place upon it. The patience of the saints was stronger than the cruelty of tyrants.
It needs courage to be afraid.
It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.
When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, 'Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.'
The work of anti-racism can only take place inside each individual soul, where we all try to grow into better people. There is no national tonic or instant cure.
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