So I would recommend to you a way of love. I still believe that love is the most durable power in all the world. Hate is a cancerous disease which distorts the personality and scars the soul. To return hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate in the universe. Hate seeks to annihilate rather than convert. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. We must learn that it is possible to stand up courageously and positively against an evil system and yet not resist it with physical weapons and inner feelings of hatred. Finally, we must be willing to suffer and sacrifice in order to achieve our freedom. We must recognize that freedom is a priceless possession which every man must possess if he is to be truly human.

From Address at the Thirty-fourth Annual Convention of the National Bar Association, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, delivered August 20, 1959. You can read it in its entirety here.