The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
Interpretation
King found moral and practical guidance in Gandhi's nonviolent resistance contrary to other political philosophies.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on his search for a philosophy that would provide both intellectual and moral satisfaction in the context of social justice. He contrasts the ideas of various influential thinkers, such as Bentham, Marx, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, with Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance, concluding that this approach is the most ethical and viable way for oppressed individuals to attain freedom.
In practice
During a discussion on social justice movements, one might quote King to emphasize the importance of nonviolent methods.
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.
Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity.
The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution.
Outsiders tend to be the first to recognize the inadequacies of our social institutions. But, precisely because they are outsiders, they are usually in a poor position to fix them.
When one sense perceives the hidden, the invisible world becomes apparent to the whole.
Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed.
For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and nonbeing. You can tell yourself the time by their waking, if you are experienced. But that is your folly, not theirs.
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