What is the meaning of the phrase "it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"?
Literal meaning
What is the origin of the phrase "it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"? It is better to light a candle rather than curse the darkness. Several people are associated with this proverbial saying, especially John F. Kennedy. Peter Benenson, the English lawyer and founder of Amnesty International, drew the public's attention to a Human Rights ceremony on December 10, 1961. Since then, the candle in a circle of barbed wire has become the emblem of society. Obscurity has long been a metaphor of ignorance or evil.
The Bible contains hundreds of references to darkness, referring to both the period of ignorance before the realization of the faith (ie, before "seeing the light"), death, or the devil (The Prince of Darkness); for example, in Romans 13: 13:11 And this, knowing that now is the time to wake up from sleep; because now our salvation is closer than when we believed. 13:12 The night is exhausted, the day is near. So leave us the works of darkness and wear the armor of light. And it is in a religious context that the sentence is first printed. Wesleyan English minister William Lonsdale Watkinson used the expression in The Supreme Conquest, and other sermons preached in America.
In 1907: But the rhetoric of denunciation is much easier and cheaper than good works and demonstrates a popular temptation. However, it is much better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.
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