One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on humanity's moral responsibility towards animals and a future realization of shared existence.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks to the eventual understanding that the belief in the superiority over other animals is fundamentally absurd. He suggests that as humanity evolves, there will come a time when we recognize the shared existence and moral equivalency with other living beings, leading to a more compassionate and worthy way of cohabiting the planet.
In practice
In a speech about animal welfare legislation.
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.
To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.
If there's one thing that really annoys a god, it's not knowing something.
I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.
I want to live in a world where my son will not be presumed guilty the moment he is born, where a toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than a toy.
I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.
There will never be any more perfection than there is now.
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