These 5 Wise Quotes remind us how Love responds to Hate.

 

“Let us remember that their goal is to terrorize. Don’t let them win. Do not be afraid. Do not go back on your values. We should mourn, but we should move on to show them we’re not going to give up.” ~ a citizen

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix

Read MLK’s quote, now more than ever:

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.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“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.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. #mayitbeofbenefit #prayforparis

A photo posted by Elephant Journal (@elephantjournal) on Nov 13, 2015 at 8:10pm PST

~ Read this quote via a US citizen, on reddit:

“They want us to go to war.” “I just hope France does not make the same mistakes we did after our tragedy on September 11th. Responding with fear and hatred is what they want, and from our experience, it only begets war, pain, violence, more extremism and more fear. They want moderate Muslims to be pushed to extremism with hate, and they want the respective nations to clamp down on their civilians rights, we can’t give in, and I hope France is better then us in this regard. EDIT: What needs to be said is that these Islamic extremists are at a war for the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims, and its a costly one. They hope that by committing horrendous butchery, they can further alienate the West and the Islamic world, and get moderates to be polarized and hopefully (from their perspective), radicalized. Hatred, bigotry and alienation feeds into this radicalization, and events like these make people want to retaliate, and therefore cause all three. I hope people take this into account before they come to conclusions about the Muslim community as a whole, and how we should respond as a international community to this tragedy.” via #reddit #terrorism #fear #france #vivelafrance Let us stand together in love against fear: we can not defeat hate with war but rather with decent people all around the world, united in condemning barbarism. #mayitbeofbenefit #love #mlkjr A photo posted by Elephant Journal (@elephantjournal) on Nov 14, 2015 at 10:22am PST

I just hope France does not make the same mistakes we did after our tragedy on September 11th. Responding with fear and hatred is what they want, and from our experience, it only begets war, pain, violence, more extremism and more fear. They want moderate Muslims to be pushed to extremism with hate, and they want the respective nations to clamp down on their civilians rights, we can’t give in, and I hope France is better then us in this regard.

EDIT: What needs to be said is that these Islamic extremists are at a war for the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims, and its a costly one. They hope that by committing horrendous butchery, they can further alienate the West and the Islamic world, and get moderates to be polarized and hopefully (from their perspective), radicalized. Hatred, bigotry and alienation feeds into this radicalization, and events like these make people want to retaliate, and therefore cause all three. I hope people take this into account before they come to conclusions about the Muslim community as a whole, and how we should respond as a international community to this tragedy.  Via: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3sqxbb/france/

~

Read JFK’s quote, which echoes Shambhala Buddhism in its reminder of all humanity’s fundamental goodness. We all want to be happy; the problem comes when we see our happiness as divisible, separate, weak, endangered by yours:

We’re all together on this small blue dot. This morning let us pray that these tragedies and aggression inspire world unity in peace, not war. #prayforparis #france #vivelafrance #mayitbeofbenefit

A photo posted by Waylon Lewis (@waylonlewis) on Nov 14, 2015 at 11:02am PST

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“In light of today’s horrible events I can’t stop thinking about this wonderful scene from TNG 3×05, “The Bonding.” (youtube.com)

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Finally:

Facing Tragedy from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

 

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One more, challenging one:

George Bernard Shaw’s play ‘The Man of Destiny’ in which Shaw, speaking through Napoleon, describes Englishmen:

“Every Englishman is born with a miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently, till there comes into his head, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that comes from a strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility.

As a great champion of freedom and independence he conquers half the world, and calls it colonization.

When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the gospel of peace. The natives kill the missionary; he flies to arms in defence of Christianity. He fights for it, conquers for it, and takes the market as a reward from heaven.

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles, he supports his king on royal principles and cuts off his king’s head on republican principles.

His watchword is always Duty, and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.”

~

Commentary, via Reddit:

Substitute “Englishmen” with any modern power, History keeps repeating itself.

The war on terror is a wheel and organisations, nations and people of power are the spokes. Those on top may be pushed down, but others will always rise to take the place of the fallen, and so the cycle continues until the fallen once again rise to the top. If we wish to end this futile endeavour, we cannot just stop the wheel. Stopping the wheel implies a either a victory in which the west become a unilateral governing force of military design, nothing that could ever, in my eyes be considered a victory as we would only replace those that we sought to destroy.

The wheel must be completely and unequivocally broken in its entirety. Stop this war, stop the fighting and bring people together. It must be realised that there is no Us and there is no Them. There is only humanity.