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.
The desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone.
If you will not have death unto sin, you shall have sin unto death. There is no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you.
Though you break your heart, men will go on as before.
We have known for a long time that Prince Charles' empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant. He fell for the fake anthropologist Laurens van der Post. He was bowled over by the charms of homeopathic medicine. He has been believably reported as saying that plants do better if you talk to them in a soothing and encouraging way
If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.
As a global community, we face a choice. Do we want migration to be a source of prosperity and international solidarity, or a byword for inhumanity and social friction?
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