Last month, my blogging sister and good friend Merril Smith tagged me for the Three Quotes in Three Days challenge. Narrowing down my second quote was difficult. I wanted something with a peaceful feeling to it. One of my favorite idioms has always been, “Evil thrives when good men do nothing.” But several years ago, I actually researched who said this for something I was writing, and I was shocked to discover that no one actually said it, at least not worded like that. I was also surprised to learn that there have actually been several people who have said something with the same basic meaning.
For example, Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
But I think the closest such quote I’ve found over the years is by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.”
At any rate, since I couldn’t locate the exact author of that idiom, for my official quote today, I’m going to have to go with my second favorite peaceful quote (which, by the way, is also the epigraph for my book, The Worm Has Turned.)
“An eye for an eye will make us all blind.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
Tomorrow, I’ll be back with my last quote. But as for today, I nominate Leesha. Leesha is an aspiring author who writes for the adults as well as for the kiddos since the arrival of her sweet nephew. Be sure to visit her blog at https://prolixme.wordpress.com/ for a fun time.
Time to talk: Do you have a collection of favorite quotes? If so, do you have them written down, or are they committed to memory?
Rachel Carrera, Novelist 