The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of choosing the type of extremism we embrace in society.
Martin Luther King Jr. suggests that every individual will adopt extreme beliefs or actions at some point. However, he stresses that it is crucial to deliberate on the nature of these extremisms, advocating for those that promote creativity and positive change, rather than destructive or negative extremism. This is especially relevant as the world grapples with various social challenges, highlighting a need for passionate and transformative leadership.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, you might use this quote to encourage people to embrace positive 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 was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can't she just shut up and be happy?'
Bribes are not offered in such a way that you can prove them, and in order to prove that I didn't accept a bribe, I had to run.
Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
In every child who is born, no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again: and in him, too, once more, and of each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life; toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terror, and of God.
I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.
I used to believe in God. The Christian one, that is (There are a few thousand to choose from. But I was born in a country where the dominant religion was Christianity so I believed in that one. Isn't it weird how that always happens?). Luckily I was also interested in science and nature. And reason and logic. And honesty and truth. And equality and fairness. By the age of eight I was an atheist.
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