As arguably the most prominent leader of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been honored for advancing rights for people of color through nonviolence and civil disobedience. His legacy is celebrated annually as a federal holiday on the third Monday of January.

In 2000, the holiday became officially observed in all 50 states. A holiday for King was originally introduced as a bill in Congress in 1979. It fell five votes short in the House and was later signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

From speeches like "I Have a Dream" to his "Letter From Birmingham Jail," King drew global recognition for his many human rights accomplishments.

To commemorate MLK Day, here are 24 inspiring quotes from King, compiled from Biography and BrainyQuote.

1. "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

2. "The time is always right to do what is right."

3. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

4. "We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

5. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

6. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

7. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

8. "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed."

9. "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

10. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

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

12. "Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."

13. "We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

14. "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

15. "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

16. "For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory."

17. "There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love."

18. "Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education."

19. "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

20. "The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."

21. "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

22. "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

23. "True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

24. "Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better."

MLK day
Dr Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) addresses civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, April 1965. Keystone/Getty Images
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