Martin Luther King Day

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Day. We honor the character of the man, we honor his accomplishments, we honor his dream. I've written a lot on the man in the HCE magazines (Black History Month2011, 2012, 2013 and Civil Rights 1963) - and I have taken his words into my heart as my own inspiration. Below, I share a few of my favorites.


"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness." 

"A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." 

"The principle of self-acceptance is a basic principle in life...after accepting ourselves and our tools, we must discover what we are called to do. And once we discover it we should set out to do it with all of the strength and all of the power that we have in our systems. And after we’ve discovered what God called us to do, after we’ve discovered our life’s work, we should set out to do that work so well that the living, the dead, or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. Now this does not mean that everybody will do the so-called big, recognized things of life. Very few people will rise to the heights of genius in the arts and the sciences; very few collectively will rise to certain professions. Most of us will have to be content to work in the fields and in the factories and on the streets. But we must see the dignity of all labor."