"Eye for eye - whole world blind"

Factual Questions
1

I’ve seen various forms of the quote “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Usually, these words have been attributed to Gandhi, but I haven’t seen any reference to which work or speech they appeared in. I have also heard similar quotes attributed to Martin Luther King.

Can anyone help me by pinning down:

  • The precise wording of the quote (though I suppose it may not originally have been in English);
  • Who said / wrote it;
  • And where it was said / is written.
2

It appears that the words are those of John Briley, who wrote the screenplay of the film Gandhi.

“Many who saw the movie Gandhi recall the moment when the humble pacifist sums up his philosophy by saying, ‘An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.’ Apt as that summation was, Gandhi never said it. Michigan graduate John Briley put those pithy words in his mouth.”

http://www.umich.edu/news/MT/93/Mar_and_Oct_93/Mar_93/articles_mar93.html

3

Seems pretty conclusive - thank you.

4

Except that the movie Fiddler on the Roof has Tevye speak almost the same line. When a villager says, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” Tevye replies, “Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.”

Fiddler on the Roof came out in 1971, eleven years before Gandhi.

I don’t know whether Tevye’s line was in the stage version of the musical. I don’t think the line comes from Tevye’s Daughters, the collection of stories by Sholem Aleichem that Fiddler on the Roof was based on. I found the collection on Amazon and did a “search inside this book” on the word “blind” and didn’t find the phrase.