The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

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Speech · Political speech

The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

Barack Obama

1965

★ 3.9

Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., who likely was paraphrasing a quote by Theodore Parker in 1853.

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Topic

Nature of progress Social progress Political progress Progress

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Citation

King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Keep Moving From This Mountain." 25 Feb. 1965, Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

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I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one... But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Theodore Parker

1853

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If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

Frederick Douglass

1857

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

Man and Superman · 1903

Another quote aboutTopic·Nature of progress

Truth…never comes into the world, but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth.

John Milton

1643

Another quote aboutTopic·Nature of progress

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that.

Barack Obama

2012

Another quote byPerson·Barack Obama

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Works in other forms that share a subject with this one.

Other media onSubject·Progress

Book · 1962

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn

Book · 1957

The Cairo Trilogy

Naguib Mahfouz

The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. — Barack Obama

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