(no subject)

[dakegra]

Back from a long weekend at Centerparcs. Finally caught up with Saturday's Doctor Who. Might need to re-watch that one.

And Bin Laden, eh? Slightly surprised by some people's reactions.

one of my friends put forward this quote

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"
— Martin Luther King Jr.

'nuff said.


[edit] can anyone find a source for that quote? It's apparently been doing the rounds and, geek that I am, I wanted to see where he'd said it. The 'hate multiplies hate' bit is easy to find, but I can't find a non-twitter reference to the first bit.

Comments

[quaero-verum.livejournal.com]

'Nuff said, indeed.

Thank you.

[isihac.livejournal.com]

Closest I've found so far, from Strength to Love (1963) chapter 5.

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. ... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

[isihac.livejournal.com]

Can't find the text online to check what came just before that, but although he reused phrases a lot in different speeches this is the only one with the bits in the right order that I can see.

[isihac.livejournal.com]

Bingo!

http://twitter.com/jmadly/statuses/65336033486704640

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

aha! Missing quotation marks. Problem solved!

[caitirin.livejournal.com]

Very well said. :)

[paula-abroad.livejournal.com]

agreed

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

The first sentence is NOT by MLK: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/out-of-osamas-death-a-fake-quotation-is-born/238220/

A bit like that sodding fake Churchill quotation that loads of people were tweeting re: arts cuts.

I dunno, I can see that these things resonate with people, but it just seems a bit trite when I click on to Twitter and FB and see a zillion people posting the exact same thing.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

do I get bonus points for questioning if the quote was true or not?

Not that I suppose it matters, but when I posted it up I'd only seen one other person do so on Facebook - I genuinely agree with the sentiment, even if MLK didn't come up with the whole thing verbatim - he certainly said some of it though.

Given time and energy, I'd have tried to say something along the same lines in my own way. Saw that and thought yep, that pretty much covers it. Copy, paste, done.

If you don't like it, or agree with it then that's entirely your prerogative.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Yep, you totally get points for questioning it.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

of course, I bet I'd have got more points for questioning it before I posted it up in the first place.

:-)

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Bingo!

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

darn, premature posting. :-)