We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
Interpretation
Nonviolent action reveals existing social tensions rather than creating them.
This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. highlights the role of nonviolent direct action in exposing the underlying conflicts and injustices present in society. By engaging in peaceful protests and demonstrations, activists draw attention to issues that may be ignored or suppressed, making it clear that the tensions they spotlight are not new creations but rather exacerbations of existing disparities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of peaceful protests.
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.
Capture of Nanking Rain and a windstorm rage blue and yellow over Chung the bell mountain as a million peerless troops cross the Great River. The peak is a coiled dragon, the city a crouching tiger more dazzling than before. The sky is spinning and the earth upside down. We are elated yet we must use our courage to chase the hopeless enemy. We must not stoop to fame like the overlord Hsiang Yu. If heaven has feeling it will grow old and watch our seas turn into mulberry fields.
If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation - and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from falling hands we throw.
There's a storm inside of us. I've heard many team guys speak of this. A burning. A river. A drive.
No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere.
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.
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