In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Interpretation
Citizens must follow fair laws while also challenging unjust ones.
This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasizes the dual responsibility of citizens in a society: to uphold the law when it is just and fair, and to resist and challenge laws that are unjust. It reflects a moral imperative to advocate for justice and equality, highlighting that obedience to law does not mean passive acceptance of injustice.
In practice
During a speech at a civil rights rally to inspire activism against unfair laws.
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.
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. . . . It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forebearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that-being what it is-it falls so short of in fact and in deed.
The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not religion.
It is not a question of sitting silently, it is not a question of chanting a mantra. It is a question of understanding the subtle workings of the mind. As you understand those workings of the mind a great awareness arises in you, which is not of the mind. That awareness arises in your being, in your soul, in your consciousness.
This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.
A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.
I have often thought that when I do die it will be of sheer boredom.
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