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Martin Luther King Jr. believed that leadership requires the courage to stand alone. He famously said, 'A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. ' He rejected the idea of leadership as popularity, arguing that true leaders act on conscience, not convenience. 'The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ' King teaches that leadership is about moral obligation, not political calculation.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."
"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values."
"The time is always right to do what is right."
"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."
"In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be."
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
"We must come to see that the whole of the American economy is based on a kind of socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise for the poor."
"Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war."
"Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
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