Have you read this lately?”
You’ve probably seen this quote 50 times online yesterday, most likely attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s both pensive and timely; certainly looks like he might have said.
Sorry, cut'n'pasters. He didn't. And neither did anyone else before today, when the originator of the quote took to Twitter and decided to pretend to quote King. Haha. Tricked you.
“What do you get out of saying something pithy, and getting no credit for it?,” asks The Atlantic‘s Megan McArdle. “Perhaps they only wanted to say this thing, and knew that no one would pay attention unless it came from someone else,” she posits. “Or, perhaps they are getting a gargantuan kick out of seeing people repeat their lie ad infinitum.”
As Abraham Lincoln once said: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re not quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.” ~1869
Here's the original:
ReplyDelete"Are we seeking power for power’s sake? Or are we seeking to make the world and our nation better places to live. If we seek the latter, violence can never provide the answer. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, 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." (pp. 64-65)
It can be found in:
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos Or Community?
By Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Vincent Harding
(published in 1968, reprinted in 2010)