We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
Interpretation
Nonviolent action reveals existing social tensions rather than creating them.
This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. highlights the role of nonviolent direct action in exposing the underlying conflicts and injustices present in society. By engaging in peaceful protests and demonstrations, activists draw attention to issues that may be ignored or suppressed, making it clear that the tensions they spotlight are not new creations but rather exacerbations of existing disparities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of peaceful protests.
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.
We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
[John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.
He is courageous who endures and fears the right thing, for the right motive, in the right way and at the right times.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every many for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even you father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations.
Would it hurt to die? All those times he had thought it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself: his will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death.
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