Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? - "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the idea that a nation divided in its principles cannot endure.
This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on the struggle for civil rights and the inherent contradiction in a society that allows both freedom and oppression. King suggests that true survival and unity of a nation depend on its commitment to justice and equality, and that a compromise between freedom and slavery is unsustainable.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civil rights, one might quote this to highlight the necessity of unity in the fight for equality.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm.
The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment.
One of God's central qualities is compassion, a word that in Hebrew is related to the word for "womb." Not only is compassion a female image suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for us as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world and participates in it. . . .
The Trinity is the basis of the gospel, and the gospel is a declaration of the Trinity in action.
This is my philosophy on all life, not just when it comes to love. All the best things are terrifying, but that's why they're the best things. Nothing worth having comes easy. You have to be afraid to want it, afraid to lose it, afraid to try. If you feel that, then you know you're on to a winner.
The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things: bread and circuses!
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