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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy with 20 of his most famous quotes

The legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King's words are just as relevant today as they were during his time.

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy with 20 of his most famous quotes
American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968) at a press conference in London, September 1964. (Photo by Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

As the United States remembered the legendary Martin Luther King Jr. on January 20, former President Barack Obama honored the civil rights leader by sharing a letter penned by the icon in 1963. Obama noted how the letter—written by King while in detention at an Alabama jail for leading a march of black protesters without a permit and urging a boycott of businesses owned by white people—is relevant even today. "Every so often, I re-read Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. While some of the injustices may have changed, his poetic brilliance, moral clarity, and tests of conscience still reverberate today," the 58-year-old tweeted.

Taking a cue from the former President, here are 20 of King's most famous quotes that are just as relevant today as they were back then:

American clergyman and civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968). (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

1. "The beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold."

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) (left) receives the Nobel Prize for Peace from Gunnar Jahn, president of the Nobel Prize Committee, in Oslo. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

2. "We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) addresses a rally at a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 14th October 1963. His tie is patterned with pairs of scales, representing Justice. (Photo by Frank Rockstroh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

3. "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) and his wife Coretta Scott King lead a black voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. (Photo by William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images)

4. "On some positions cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right."

President Lyndon B Johnson (1908 - 1973) discusses the Voting Rights Act with civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968). The act, part of President Johnson's 'Great Society' program trebled the number of black voters in the south, who had previously been hindered by racially inspired laws, 1965. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

5. "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) arriving at London Airport. He is in England to be the chief speaker at a public meeting about color prejudice and to appear on the BBC television program 'Face To Face'. (Photo by J. Wilds/Keystone/Getty Images)

6. "If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live."

American Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) speaks at a press conference for Clergy & Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, held at the Belmont Plaza Hotel, New York City, January 12, 1968. He announced the Poor People's March On Washington at this event. (Photo by John Goodwin/Getty Images)

7. "Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity."

View of American clergyman and civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968) (center) and others as they sit in First Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, May 22, 1961. (Photo by William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images)

8. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) addresses a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, 27th May 1966. (Photo by Jeff Kamen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

9. "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."

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with President Lyndon B. Johnson in the background March 18, 1966, at the White House. (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)

10. "Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers."

American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968) and Canon John Collins (1905 - 1982) attend a press conference, 6th December 1964. (Photo by Terry Disney/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

11. "In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."

Civil rights campaigner and clergyman Martin Luther King Jr.(1929 - 1968) leading a civil rights march in Alabama. His colleague and fellow clergyman Ralph Abernathy (1926 - 1990) is on the left. (Photo by William Lovelace/Getty Images)

12. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Civil rights activist and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) holds a press conference in Birmingham, Alabama, 22nd October 1963. ((Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

13. "I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future."

American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) addresses a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, 27th May 1966. (Photo by Jeff Kamen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

14. "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."

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson hands a pen to civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the signing of the voting rights act as officials look on behind them, Washington, D.C., August 6, 1965. (Photo by Washington Bureau/Getty Images)

15. "What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."

Civil rights activists Fred Shuttlesworth (1922 - 2011, left) and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) hold a press conference in Birmingham, Alabama, 22nd October 1963. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

16. "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

Black American civil rights leader and Baptist minister Dr. Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) sitting in a restaurant. (Photo by William H. Alden/Evening Standard/Getty Images)

17. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Canon John Collins greeting American civil rights campaigner Dr. Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) at London Airport. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

18. "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education."

Over 200,000 people gather around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, where the civil rights March on Washington ended with Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

19. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) holds a press conference during the riots at the start of the Birmingham Campaign, May 1963. The movement, which called for the integration of African Americans in schools, was organized by King and Fred Shuttlesworth amongst others. (Photo by Frank Rockstroh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

20. "The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."

Dr. Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) addresses civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

References:

https://people.com/politics/martin-luther-king-jr-s-powerful-quotes/?slide=2386113#2386113

https://www.businessinsider.in/12-inspiring-quotes-from-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-/12-inspiring-quotes-from-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-/slideshow/56602408.cms

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