Top 160 Luther Quotes

When we started making ‘Selma,’ the Black Lives Matter movement didn’t exist. The parallels between Martin Luther King staging these marches, suffering police brutality… we weren’t even aware when making the film that these sorts of things would start to happen again in 2015.

From time to time, you have seminal personalities who really change the way the world sees itself – people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Warren Buffett is that kind of person in the business world.

I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive.

Black women fought for the right to vote during the suffrage movement and fought again during the civil rights movement. The rote narrative in the press of the civil rights movement is truncated with the briefest of histories of men like Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, or John Lewis.

A lot of these things in this world were only a dream for Martin Luther King. Not a one-term, but a two-term African-American president. And this is a terrible country? That was a dream for Martin Luther King.

I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination – everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

I started listening to old school R&B artists like Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, and Donny Hathaway when I was in 6th grade.

Martin Luther King Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point.

I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King. I think he was one of the greatest orators that the country ever produced.

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back – but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.

I was very much a part of the civil rights era, so, of course, my fantasy was to marry some outstanding black gentleman, a leader – someone like Martin Luther King who was doing something for black people.

Martin Luther King said it was time to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of human civilization. I don’t think anyone is calling Martin Luther King a New Age woo-woo.

I filed a brief as a friend of the court in the U. of Michigan to keep affirmative action at the U. of Michigan, which I attended the law school. And I was one of the original sponsors of making the Martin Luther King birthday a federal holiday.

I think, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks will go down as one of the two most well-known and remembered figures out of the Civil Rights Movement.

We don’t have performances as big as ‘Lemonade Mouth’ on ‘Zeke and Luther,’ but they’re both amazing experiences; just, ‘Lemonade Mouth’ was a bit bigger. It was different for me.

My sense of religion is Einstein’s sense of relativity. I don’t believe in God. I believe that energy never dies. So the possibility exists that you might be breathing in some other form of Moses or Buddha or Muhammad or Bobby Kennedy or Roosevelt or Martin Luther King or Jesus.

I think it’s a good thing for a president or political leaders to want to put their values or their faith into action. Desmond Tutu did that in South Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. did that here. This is a good thing.

Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don’t see a whole lot of that any more.

I wanted to show that Martin Luther King was simply a human being, not a god, not a saint.

Opponents of legal birth control, including abortion, have tried for decades to play the race card, saying that legal abortion is racist. What they ignore is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood in 1966.

So, I was a fan of ‘Luther’ from the first reading of the script and watching the first series. I think the actors in it are just brilliant, and I had never seen a black lead in the U.K. for so many years. That was quite a shocking moment for me.

One of the greatest men to ever walk this land was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His life exemplified unity by bringing people together for the good of all. In any small way I hope to someday bring people together like Dr. King.

Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech always sends me down some path, some trajectory of some creative idea.

You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That’s what Martin Luther King told me.

Now, Martin Luther King Jr. was a bridge builder, not a wall builder.

I remember the day Richard Nixon won in 1968. That was a time that seemed certain to bring about long awaited seismic change in America. But events of tragic proportion took us on a turn. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were suddenly dead.

My work has always been rooted in nonviolence, as espoused by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

My daddy, Rev. A. D. King, my granddaddy, Martin Luther King, Senior – we are a family of faith, hope and love.

I was doing a civil rights musical here in Los Angeles, and we sang at one of the rallies where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke, and I remember the thrill I felt when we were introduced to him. To have him shake your hand was an absolutely unforgettable experience.

I was a child when the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King occurred, and I wanted to hear what was going on. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to contribute in the best way I possibly could.

I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp – just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.

I’m a pastor. I lead Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. served.

In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.

Jail threats did not dissuade Martin Luther King – and intergenerational justice is a moral issue of comparable magnitude to civil rights.

Luther Campbell is the only person that has ever paid me for sampling me. I’m out for the rest of ’em, but the young man paid me.

We don’t really know who killed Martin Luther King. We don’t really know who killed Bobby Kennedy. We don’t really know who killed John Kennedy. We don’t really know who killed Tupac Shakur.

I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That’s what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that’s from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.

But there was not a job that could say that Luther Allison didn’t do his job.

President Obama’s achievements and failures must be evaluated by comparison to those chief executives who have come before him and not be measured against the prophetically moral voice of Martin Luther King Jr.

I don’t remember when I didn’t know about Martin Luther King.

It has become impossible to forget ‘votes for women,’ just as it was impossible to forget the reformation of Luther.

I think that not only do saints make poor role models, they are incapable in one sense of identifying radically with those of us who are mere mortals. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mortality says to us that here’s a figure who got up every day of his life facing tremendous odds and yet overcame them.

Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I’m on today.

Some people criticize the faithful for getting involved in politics, but it’s important to remember that down through the centuries, people motivated by their faith have done many important things. Martin Luther King Jr. – motivated by his faith – brought about an end to segregation in our country.

My mother was the strong wife, partner, and co-worker Martin Luther King, Jr. needed to be an effective leader, and he said so on many occasions.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my personal heroes.

When I was 15 years old in 1955, I heard of Rosa Parks. I heard the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on our radio.

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.

Thank God we have the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples’ lives, and that’s why it’s so important not just to commemorate his life, but to study and try to live by the principles of that life.

Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.

We are now operating a school system in America that’s more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.