I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the belief that people have the capacity to transcend their current moral limitations and strive for a higher ethical standard.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. argues against the notion that human beings are bound by their present nature and are therefore unable to aspire to a higher moral standard or 'oughtness.' He insists that individuals possess the potential to rise above their circumstances and strive for eternal truth and justice, inspiring hope and a call to action towards moral improvement.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth and change.
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 am unable to think of any critical, complex human activity that could be safely reduced to a simple summary equation.
For you deal here above all with human life, and human life is sacred; no one may dare make an attempt upon it. Respect for life, even with regard to the great problem of the birth rate, must find here in your Assembly its highest affirmation and its most rational defense. Your task is to ensure that there is enough bread on the tables of mankind, and not to encourage an artificial control of births, which would be irrational, in order to diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life.
I spent a long time looking at faces, drinking in smiles. Am I happy or unhappy? It’s not a very important question. I live with such frenzied intensity. Things and people are waiting for me, and doubtless I am waiting for them and desiring them with all my strength and sadness. But, here, I earn the right to be alive by silence and by secrecy. The miracle of not having to talk about oneself.
History is nothing but a problem of mechanics applied to psychology.
Corporations have neither bodies to kick, nor souls to damn.
I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.