On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of following one's conscience over social or personal conveniences.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. highlights the conflict between cowardice, expedience, vanity, and conscience. He warns that while it may be tempting to choose a path that is safer, more acceptable, or more popular, true morality often requires us to act in accordance with our conscience, even when it is difficult or goes against popular opinion. It is a call to courage in standing up for what is right, regardless of the personal cost.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about ethical leadership.
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 still suffer terribly from stage fright. I get sick with fear. Not every night, but at the beginning and on occasion - not necessarily when I'm expecting it. You just have to cope with it - take it on the chin and work through it, trying to use the adrenalin to perform.
Helen Keller became deaf, dumb, and blind shortly after birth. Despite her greatest misfortune, she has written her name indelibly in the pages of the history of the great. Her entire life has served as evidence that no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality.
Everyone asks me how I stay calm on court and I think it's because I accepted who I am after overcoming low points in my life.
I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.
With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: “I will not be nothing.”
If you’ve given a dollar, you are part of the Marathon of Hope .
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