If a man is called a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Topic: Commitment, Goals, Purpose, Work
- Location: Hawaii, Oahu
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.
More Quotes from Hawaii
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There are a thousand excuses for failure but never a good reason.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
Irrevocable commitments that offer loopholes, not bail-out provisions, and no parachute clauses will extract incredible productivity and performance.
The way you habitually think will determine your destiny.
The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting and achieving goals.
If there is anything in the world a person should fight for, it is freedom to pursue his ideal, because in that is his great opportunity for self-expression, for the unfoldment of the greatest thing possible to him.
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease to exist at death.
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.
Change, But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.
Plans will get you into things, but you have got to work your way out.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
The heights by great men reached and kept Where not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.
Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.
I just want God’s will. And He’s allowed to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promise land . . . So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.
Conquer yourself rather than the world.
No ascent is too steep for mortals. Heaven itself we seek in our folly.
It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.
