Beloved Community Quotes

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

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• Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.

  Bell Hooks

  Differences, Identity, Legacy

  19 Copy quote

• Our goal is to create a beloved community," said Dr. King, "and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Goal, Soul

  10 Copy quote

• We are living in an historic moment. We are each called to take part in a great transformation. Our survival as a species is threatened by global warming, economic meltdown, and an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. Yet these threats offer an opportunity to awaken as an interconnected and beloved community.

  Desmond Tutu

  Opportunity, Survival, Gaps

  74 Copy quote

• Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method...is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community...Yes , love-which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies-is the solution

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Hate, Mean, Fighting

  35 Copy quote

• The larger your beloved community, the more you can accomplish in the world.

  Nhat Hanh

  World, Accomplish, Community

  Source: www.oprah.com

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• Resistance and nonviolence are not in themselves good. There is another element that must be present in our struggle that then makes our resistance and nonviolence truly meaningful. That element is reconciliation. Our ultimate end must be the creation of the beloved community.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Meaningful, Struggle, Elements

  18 Copy quote

• A second basic fact that characterizes nonviolence is that it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Winning, Understanding, Doe

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.100, Beacon Press

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• If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice, have recognition for difference without attaching difference to privilege.

  Bell Hooks

  Differences, Justice, Want

  83 Copy quote

• We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We've come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.

  John Lewis

  Kings, Distance, Law

  136 Copy quote

• If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice.

  Bell Hooks

  Justice, Want, Ifs

  65 Copy quote

• The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Suicide, Spiritual, Brutality

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.75, Beacon Press

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• There is an elementary aspiration which undergirds the humane impulse in our history and our culture and binds us together as political activists. This is a simple, irreducible, indisputable aspiration. It is the 'dream of justice' for a beloved community, in which the level of terror in people's lives is sharply reduced or maybe eliminated. It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.

  Paul Wellstone

  Dream, Simple, Giving

  21 Copy quote

• We cannot sit around and talk about the beloved community.

  Cleveland Sellers

  Community, Civil Rights, Beloved

  6 Copy quote

• The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Mean, Aftermath, Redemption

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.38, Beacon Press

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• A good mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer. She remembers to make play dates, her children's clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Love, Mother, Art

  4 Copy quote