Quote of the Week: Martin Luther King, Jr. [January 17]

(Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

I love coming across fantastic, inspiring, moving, funny and other quotes that stand out to me. So I thought I'd share various quotes that I've come across in the weeks to come. My idea is to share one a week here on this blog.

But this week will be a little different. It's still a quote, or rather, a few quotes. But they are quotes from a speech that we've heard for years. On Monday, we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Today's quotes are from his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream."

Here is this week's Quote of the Week:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

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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 have a dream today!

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And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

I think we need to listen to these words carefully, because they still hold true today. We still need to let freedom ring, we still need to make sure that everyone is created equally, people need to be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin or their religion or their sexual orientation or anything else. These most basic of issues that Dr. King preached back then are still coming up today, and we need to do something about it.

What do you make of these quotes and this speech? And how do you think Martin Luther King, Jr.'s message still resonates today? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Tomorrow's Photo of the Week will feature photos that I took quite a few years ago when I visited San Francisco; the photos will be of Alcatraz prison. This is to celebrate the series premiere of the new FOX show, Alcatraz, which debuted this Monday.

If there's a great quote, photo or video you've come across, send it to me via Twitter, e-mail or in the comments below, and I might share it on this blog.

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