Breaking Silence Quotes:

I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

- Martin Luther

topic: War, Enemy, Breaking Silence, Militarism

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

topic: Breaking Silence, World, Revolution, Militarism

What's breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?

- Bertolt Brecht

source: Bertolt Brecht (2015). “Brecht Collected Plays: 2: Man Equals Man; Elephant Calf; Threepenny Opera; Mahagonny; Seven Deadly Sins”, p.204, A&C Black

topic: Banking, Breaking Silence, Literature, Founding, Bankers And Banks

The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: "A Time to Break Silence". Speech at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City, www.deanza.edu. April 04, 1967.

topic: Betrayal, Night, Agony, Breaking Silence

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Change, Uplifting, Spiritual, Social Programs, Soul Force

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

- Elie Wiesel

source: Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 11 Dec. 1986

topic: Neutrality, Sides, Helping, Darfur, Sounds Of Silence

Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.

- C. S. Lewis

topic: Hurt, Heart, Silence, Hurt Feelings, Break Your Heart

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.

- Harvey Fierstein

topic: Beautiful, Being Yourself, Freedom, Live For Yourself, Definition Of Beauty

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

- John F. Kennedy

source: Address on first anniversary of Alliance for Progress, 13 Mar. 1962

topic: Inspirational, Peace, Freedom, Social Revolution, American Revolution

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

- Elie Wiesel

source: Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 11 Dec. 1986

topic: Peace, History, Silence, Darfur, Sounds Of Silence

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism...We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today and we are faced with the fierce urgency of now.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Lying, Hero, Racism, Hostile, Militarism

Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Loyalty, Order, Individual, Breaking Silence

America never was America to me And yet I swear this oath - America will be!

- Langston Hughes

topic: America, Oath, Swear, Breaking Silence

We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Inspiring, Rights, Racism, Profit Motive, Militarism

I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Voice, Government, World, World Today, Militarism

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

- Helen Keller

topic: Inspirational, Wisdom, Patience, Spiritual Darkness, Darkness To Light

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and for justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Peace, War, Moving, Breaking Silence, Reserved

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.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Hate, War, Home, Deranged, Justice And Love

The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late...'

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.121, Beacon Press

topic: Men, Civilization, Climate, Breaking Silence

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: "The Quest for Peace and Justice". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1964.

topic: Life, Hate, Ocean, Wreckage, Retaliation

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies...

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Justice, Revolution, Causes, Indignation, Righteous Indignation

"When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

topic: Powerful, Love Life, Reality, Unifying, Breaking Silence

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God

- John the Apostle

topic: Love, Love Is, Beloved, Loving Others, Jesus Loves You

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

- Lloyd Banks

topic: Looks, Poverty, Revolution, Indignation, Righteous Indignation

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim.

- Tim Field

topic: Silence, Victim, Bullied, Live For Yourself, Definition Of Beauty

In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.

- Judy Garland

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Love, Good Night, Men, Garlands, Awake At Night

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter - but beautiful - struggle for a new world.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Beautiful, Struggle, Long, Dejected, Urgency

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Brother, Children, War, Kings Speech, Breaking Silence

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and postive action.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Motivational, Too Late, Today, Life Unfolding, Dejected

They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today-my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Ghetto, Home, Boys, World Today, Breaking Silence

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

- James Russell Lowell

source: 'The Present Crisis' (1845)

topic: Truth, Forever, Shadow, Kings Speech, Truth About Forever

A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought, within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Betrayal, War, Moving, Demonic, Spiritual Death

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Brother, Compassion, Assessment, Breaking Silence, True Meaning

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

- Herman Melville

topic: Hope, Struggle, Soul, Breaking Silence

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers and sisters.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Brother, Hands, Justice, Breaking Silence, Human Hands

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-antirevolutionaries.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Arches, World, Complacency, Breaking Silence

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. "A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.119, Beacon Press

topic: Journey, Men, Compassion, Samaritans, Jericho

Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Reality, Love Is, Keys, Kings Speech, Breaking Silence

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Inspirational, Life, Compassion, Samaritans, World Poverty

I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission - a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man".

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.114, Beacon Press

topic: Hard Work, Men, Brotherhood Of Man, Nobel Prize, Breaking Silence

If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Men, America, Long, Autopsy, Breaking Silence

The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on.

- Omar Khayyam

topic: Moving, Writing, Fingers, Lure, Breaking Silence

I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds of energies in rehabilitation of its poor as long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Adventure, Men, Skills, Militarism, Breaking Silence

Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

- James Russell Lowell

topic: Shadow, Watches, Providence, Breaking Silence