#484: The Prime Question: “Is it Right?”

“Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus. On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.”

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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
(Bold emphasis added.)

King often delivered slightly revised versions of his speeches at different venues, and a later variant of this speech, delivered at the Episcopal National Cathedral, Washington D.C. (31 March 1968), though retaining much, contained statements not in the 1965 version.

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil rights activist Martin Luther King Sr. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

#483: "Nothing But Free Argument"

In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.*

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* Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2, p. 256
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Green Mumford (18 June 1799).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743[a] – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson