Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes About Conscience
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I decide on the basis of conscience. A genuine leader doesn't reflect consensus, he molds consensus.
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Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh.
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In order to be true to one's conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system.
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We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.
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The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers... In winning our freedom, we will so appeal to you heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.
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The church must be reminded that it is not the master, or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.
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The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper.
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Like a boil that must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed to the light of human conscience before it can be cured.
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If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.
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One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
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When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, it loses its social perspective.... There is something about a war like this that makes people insensitive. It dulls the conscience. It strengthens the forces of reaction, and it brings into being bitterness and hatred and violence.
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We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.
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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.
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Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.
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Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
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There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
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Segregation, as even the segregationists know in their hearts, is morally wrong and sinful. If it weren't, the white South would not be haunted as it is by a deep sense of guilt for what it has done to the Negro - guilt for patronizing him, degrading him, brutalizing him, depersonalizing him, thingifying him; guilt for lying to itself. This is the source of the schizophrenia that the South will suffer until it goes through its crisis of conscience.
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The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.
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Do to us what you will, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. But we assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
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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.
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Vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?
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There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.
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An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
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Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
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One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.
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We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.
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Nonviolence is a powerful as well as a just weapon. If you confront a man who has long been cruelly misusing you, and say, "Punish me, if you will; I do not deserve it, but I will accept it, so that the world will know I am right and you are wrong," then you wield a powerful and a just weapon. This man, your oppressor, is automatically morally defeated, and if he has any conscience, he is ashamed.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Born: January 15, 1929
- Died: April 4, 1968
- Occupation: Civil rights activist
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