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 one must take it because it is right.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of acting on one's conscience rather than seeking safety, popularity, or political gain.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. underscores the struggle between choosing a path that is safe, politically advantageous, or popular, versus the moral imperative to do what is right. He advocates for taking a stand based on conscience, even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular, highlighting the necessity of courage in the pursuit of justice and moral integrity.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about social justice to inspire action for what is morally right.
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.
Fighter pilots have ice in their veins. They don't have emotions. They think, anticipate. They know that fear and other concerns cloud your mind from what's going on and what you should be involved in.
I discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain. People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice, so I took it off.
I think there's something peculiar about me that I haven't died. It doesn't make sense but I refuse to die.
I'm afraid to walk in public, because people look at me. But I'm not going to stop. I'm afraid because if I want to commune with my friend Shad (Meier), I have to ask him to cut my chicken for me. But I did it. And I'm afraid to go back and see my teammates and coaches because I know that I'll feel envy. But I'm going to do it anyway. Because fear is just a feeling, and if you can acknowledge that fear, digest that fear and overcome it, the rewards are incredible.
One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.
We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future.
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