For my own reasons, I’m having Rev. Martin Luther King Jr share this week’s quote with fellow Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner.
At age 35, King became the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When he learned of the honor, he announced that he would donate all of the prize money ($54,123) to the civil rights movement.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle, and to a movement which has not yet won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize. After contemplation, I conclude that this award, which I receive on behalf of that movement, is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.
—Martin Luther King Speeches: Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony — December 10, 1964
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
—William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speec, Stockholm, Sweden, December 10, 1950
