In this Revolution, no plans have been written for retreat. Those who will not get into step will find that the parade has passed them by.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of active participation in social progress and change.
Martin Luther King Jr. highlights that during times of significant transformation, there is no option to step back or retreat; instead, individuals must actively engage with the movement for progress or risk being left behind. The quote serves as a rallying call for people to join the fight for justice and equality, indicating that inaction will lead to obsolescence in the face of advancing societal change.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social justice to encourage active involvement.
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.
Economic, social, and other kinds of regional cooperation are not possible so long as there is apartheid. Therefore, it seems the duty of all mankind to destroy it.
Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our Nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow Americans, this is our time. Let us embrace it.
My own life in India, since I came to it in 1893 to make it my home, has been devoted to one purpose, to give back to India her ancient freedom.
Were all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren't we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we'll at least try and change the course of things. We must try, that's all.
I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate.
The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning.
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