For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never."
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the frustration of being told to wait for equality and justice, suggesting that waiting often leads to inaction and unfulfilled promises.
Martin Luther King Jr. highlights the deep sense of impatience and disillusionment within the African American community regarding the continuous demand to wait for justice and civil rights. He argues that the word 'wait' has historically implied a denial of rights and a postponement of dignity, perpetuating a cycle where progress feels impossible, thus empowering his call for immediate action against racial injustice.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about civil rights activism to emphasize the importance of immediate action.
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.
Under the Mountain dark and tall The King has come unto his hall! His foe is dead, the Worm of Dread, And ever so his foes shall fall. The sword is sharp, the spear is long, The arrow swift, the Gate is strong; The heart is bold that looks on gold; The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fells like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells. -from The Hobbit (Dwarves Battle Song)
It could achieve a lot if everyone in Burma could stop saying something is good if it is not good, or say something is just if it is not just.
My dear Excellency! I have not gone to war to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance. Do not be deceived; behind that facade is heartache, unhappiness and pain. .. YOU be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow.
Grunts on the line, where the enemy wants them dead, still goof off - even knowing that by letting their guard down they might die.
Don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.
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