Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Pithy aphorism time #2

"Peace is just.  Without justice, all you've got is quiet."

I composed that, but it sounded familiar.  Which I realized is because it's a paraphrase of something MLK said, repeatedly and in a variety of formulations:

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."
written on the memorial in DC, it seems like this may be a phrase or paraphrase from a sermon entitled "When Peace Becomes Obnoxious", March 18, 1956

"There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice."
—from a speech to Vietnam protesters, January 14, 1968 (audio here, partial transcript here)


It turns out my other pithy aphorism was a knock-off as well (also not that pithy).  At least I'm unoriginally retreading the thoughts of worthy thinkers.