King’s words remembered

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advocated nonviolent resistance to challenge the country’s laws and attitude toward blacks and people of all races.

Twenty years ago the third Monday in January became a federal holiday honoring King’s birth and his ideals for society. Here are some of King’s memorable quotes:

“It is my hope that as the Negro plunges deeper into the quest for freedom and justice, he will plunge even deeper into the philosophy of nonviolence. The Negro all over the South must come to the point that he can say to his white brother: ‘We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we will not obey your evil laws. We will soon wear you down by pure capacity to suffer.’ “

– From an Oct. 28, 1957, letter

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

– As quoted in the Wall Street

Journal, Nov. 13, 1962

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“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

In King’s letter from the

Birmingham, Ala., jail,

April 16, 1963

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

– From King’s book “Strength

to Love,” June 1963

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident – that all men are created equal.’ “

– At the March on Washington,

Aug. 28, 1963

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.”

– In accepting the Nobel Peace

Prize, Dec. 10, 1964