But If Not - Martin Luther King, Jr

But If Not - Martin Luther King, Jr

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so
dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit
to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great
opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some
great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to
do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid
that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be
criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid
that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to
take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as
dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated
announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice." Martin Luther
King, Jr November 5, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church.