Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Martin Luther King Jr. quotes - using Wordle

Happy New Year, 6th graders!

To begin to prepare for your Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Service on Friday, we're going to spend the day learning a bit about this great leader, then using some of his quotes to create a Wordle.

First, we will turn to our friends Tim and Moby at BrainPop to give us one of their famous video overviews:



Next, we will consult a long list of Martin Luther King's most famous quotes - at the bottom of this post. 

Read through the quotes, and copy and paste 10 to 15 of your favorites onto a word document.  Dr. Nystom has asked that you try to find a series of quotes that relate to each other, if possible.

Then type the words "Dr~Martin~Luther~King" onto the page five or 10 times... be sure to use a ~ to connect the words. 

You should also type in your name a couple of times, also connected by a "~".

(The idea is that the words that appear most often will be larger on your word cloud.)

Now, open the Wordle program.  The link  is http://www.wordle.net/create

Paste your selected quotes into the create portion, and select "go."



Your Wordle will be automatically created - and might look something like this:



This is when the fun begins...  You may play with the fonts, colors, and layout of your Wordle:


I would prefer you not save to the website, so once you are ready, please print your Wordle to the color printer in the LS MiniLab.


The MLK quotes follow - Have a great time!  Mrs. Morell

Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

A lie cannot live.

A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
A right delayed is a right denied.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

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

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

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.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

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

I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

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

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

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

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control.

Seeing is not always believing.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

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.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. 

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

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. 

We must use time creatively.

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension.

We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

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.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.








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