If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.
Interpretation
The quote advocates for different responses to adversaries based on their moral values.
Martin Luther King, Jr. highlights the importance of moral conscience in deciding how to confront enemies. He suggests that while nonviolence is a suitable strategy against those who possess a sense of right and wrong, a more decisive action may be required against those devoid of conscience, exemplified by figures like Hitler. This reflects a nuanced understanding of conflict and morality.
In practice
During a speech about peace and justice, one might reference this quote to illustrate moral choices in leadership.
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.
Of all my accomplishments I may have achieved during the war, I am proudest of the fact that I never lost a wingman.
People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.
There are two ways of avoiding fear: one is by persuading ourselves that we are immune from disaster, and the other is by the practice of sheer courage. The latter is difficult, and to everybody becomes impossible at a certain point. The former has therefore always been more popular. Primitive magic has the purpose of securing safety, either by injuring enemies, or by protecting oneself by talismans, spells, or incantations.
A glorious death is his, who for his country falls.
There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier's sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.
I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war.
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