Worth Pondering
May 2, 2011
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…. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
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8 Comments
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Matt, the quote is an excellent example of quantum entanglement.
I don’t see the quantum connection. Despite Schrödinger’s famous case with the cat in the box, life, love, darkness and hate are aggregate properties, neither quantum nor quantifiable, at least to my knowledge.
I do think, however, that Blackadder’s “fake” vs. “authentic” comment exemplifies how different perspectives on Truth can lead to different conclusions about the same meme: The quote is “true” in the sense of reliably capturing something intrinsic to a mature spirituality and to the spirit manifest in Dr. King’s ministry; it is “not true” that he composed and recorded the paragraph in the way Matt originally quoted it.
May biblical literalists (if any of them follow VN) take note!!
Frank, Please forgive my quantum leaps in theory. What happens if we think about love, hate, etc. as having aggregate properties of light which then are emitted in different frequencies?
@ Ronald, thank you for teaching me a new term. I just googled quantum entanglement and learned something new!
Noble sentiment, but the quote (or at least the first part of it) appears to be fake.
Yes, that first sentence does seem not to have been said by King. I think it harmonizes well with the authentic part, however. The full quote is actually two quotes, as it were:
Thank you for clearing up the attribution, BA.
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” – Mark Twain
Mark Twain didn’t say that.