Similies and Metaphors Adv
Section outline
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Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King’s Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, 10 December 1964
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
▶1I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement ▶2which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice. I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, ▶3our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because ▶4they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that ▶5debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to ▶6a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.
After contemplation, ▶7I 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 question of our time – ▶8the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that ▶9nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby ▶10transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
▶11The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a super highway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. ▶12I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that ▶13mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. ▶14I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.” I still believe that We Shall overcome!
This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride ▶15toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.
Every time I take a flight, ▶16I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible – the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.
So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man’s inhumanity to man. You honor the ▶17ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline and their names will not appear in Who’s Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvellous age in which we live men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake.
I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a ▶18curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
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Students mustReceive a gradeReceive a passing gradeMetaphors 1-2
The first two metaphors in the MLKing reading. -
Students mustReceive a gradeReceive a passing gradeMetaphors 3-4
The first two metaphors in the MLKing reading.
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Idioms
The art of Self Discipline
Have a yarn
Have a casual talk about everything or anything.
Have a chat with someone.
Have a yak (yakity-yak)Hard yakka
Hard strenuous work.
Yakka derived originally from an aborigianl word for work.Far out
Frustrated about something
An expression of disbelief about something.
Sometimes expressed in rhyming slang as, 'far out brussel sprout.'Barking up the wrong tree.
Taking the wrong approach
Trying to solve a problem by looking at the wrong source
Misdirected in their views of a problem.Set the cat among the pigeons.
Stir things up.
To say or do something controversial to make others react strongly.Ants in their pants.
Be very restless.
Can not sit still.Sail close to the wind.
To do something that has a high risk.
Do something that could be dangerous if you get it a little wrong.Ducks in a row.
Got all your ducks in a row
To be organised in both thinking, practice and how you set things up in your life.A snowball’s chance in hell.
Impossible to do.
A very low chance of success.A dogs breakfast
Very untidy.
A job or project that is very messy.A stubby short of a six pack.
Not very smart.
A lack of ability to think or analyse.A sheep short in the top paddock.
Not very smart.
A lack of ability to think or analyse.If you had a brain cell it would be lonely.
Not very smart.
A lack of ability to think or analyse.Bite the bullet.
Suffer the pain
Put up with the difficulty or pain.Close fisted.
To be stingy.
To not spend money.Can’t hold a candle to.
When something or someone is lesser than something else.
As an example it could be said 'coal power can't hold a candle to nucleaur fusion.'Dog and pony show.
An elaborate show or presentation.
When many people come to gether for a common reason organised by others. (sometimes used as slight negative coment).Enough rope.
Allow someone enough freedom to make a mistake.
Used to be, 'give them enough rope to hang themselves.'Flat out like a lizard drinking.
To be working very hard.
Flatout is to be working hard or driving fast just like a lizard drinking that is flat out in posture.Go pear-shaped.
To go wrong very quickly.
If a project goes pear shaped it fails or goes wrong very quickly.
The economy went pear-shaped during covid.Hang by a thread.
To be almost failing.
Almost failing and if some bad small thing happens all hope for success will crash or fail.