When you face someone’s insults, hatred, whatever… look at his soul. Get inside him. Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him. 

But you do have to wish him well. He’s your closest relative. The gods assist him just as they do you – by signs and dreams and every other way – to get the things he wants.

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Modern Library. 2003. P.123, Book 9, #27. Also see The Internet Classics Archive | The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (mit.edu)

the power of redemptive love

[Abraham] Lincoln tried love and left for all history a magnificent drama of reconciliation. When he was campaigning for the presidency one of his arch-enemies was a man named Stanton. For some reason Stanton hated Lincoln. He used every ounce of his energy to degrade him in the eyes of the public. So deep rooted was Stanton's hate for Lincoln that he uttered unkind words about his physical appearance and sought to embarrass him at every point with the bitterest diatribes. But in spite of this Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Then came the period when he had to select his cabinet, which would consist of the persons who would be his most intimate associates in implementing his program. He started choosing men here and there for the various  secretaryships. The day finally came for Lincoln to select a man to fill the all-important post of the Secretary of War. Can you imagine whom Lincoln chose to fill this post? None other than the man named Stanton. There was an immediate uproar in the inner circle when the news began to spread. Adviser after adviser was heard saying, "Mr. President, you are making a mistake. Do you know this man Stanton? Are you familiar with all of the ugly things he said about you? He is your enemy. He will seek to sabotage your program. Have you thought this through, Mr. President?" Mr. Lincoln's answer was terse and to the point: "Yes, I know Mr. Stanton. I am aware of all the terrible things he has said about me. But after looking over the nation, I find he is the best man for the job." So Stanton became Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War and rendered an invaluable service to his nation and his President. Not many years later Lincoln was assassinated. Many laudable things were said about him. Even today millions of people still adore him as the greatest of all Americans. H.H. Wells selected him as on of the six great men of history. But of all the great statements made about Abraham Lincoln, the words of Stanton remain among the greatest. Standing near the dead body of the man he once hated, Stanton referred to him as on of the greatest men that ever lived and said "he now belongs to the ages." If Lincoln had hated Stanton both men would have gone to their graves as bitter enemies. But through the power of love Lincoln transformed an enemy into a friend. It was this same attitude that made it possible for Lincoln to speak a kind word about the South during the Civil War when feeling was most bitter. Asked by a shocked bystander how he could do this, Lincoln said, "Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" This is the power of redemptive love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 48, 49

hate multiplies hate

Why should we love our enemies?... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, 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. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 47

the principle of love

At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. xi

the furious proceedings of the people

On our return, we resumed the subject of the massacre at Carthage, in which it will be remembered, Mr. John Taylor was severely wounded and escaped by a miracle as it were. I told him openly that there must have been some cause for the furious proceedings of the people in Illinois, Missouri, and other places against the Latter-Day Saints; that even those who had extended hospitality to them ended by hating and expelling them, and accusing them of all possible iniquities, especially of horse-thieving, forgery, larceny, and offences against property which on the border are never pardoned - was this smoke quite without fire? He heard me courteously and in perfect temper, replied that no one claimed immaculateness for the Mormons; that the net cast into the sea brought forth evil as well as good fish, and that the Prophet was one of the laborers sent into the vineyard at the eleventh hour. At the same time that when the New Faith was stoutly struggling into existence, it was the object of detraction, odium, persecution - so, said Mr. Taylor, were the Christians in the days of Nero - that the border ruffians, forgers, horse thieves, and other vile fellows followed the Mormons wherever they went; and finally that every fraud and crime was charged upon those whom the populace were disposed by desire for confiscation's sake to believe guilty. Besides the theologic odium there was also the political: the Saints would vote for their favorite candidates, consequently they were never without enemies. He quoted the Mormon rules: - 1. Worship what you like. 2. Leave your neighbor alone. 3. Vote for whom you please; and compared their troubles tot he Western, or, as it is popularly called the Whiskey insurrection in 1794, whose "dreadful night" is still remembered in Pennsylvania. Mr. Taylor remarked that the Saints had been treated by the United States as the colonies had been treated by the Crown.... I heard for the first time this view of the question, and subsequently obtained from the Apostle a manuscript account, written in extenso, of his experience and his sufferings. 

Richard F. Burton

Witness to the Martyrdom: John Taylor's Personal Account of the Last Days of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Edited by Mark H. Taylor. Deseret Book. 1999. p.14,15

death is the enemy

How can any of us be cruel to one another? How are wars possible, and hate, when we must all face such things? Death is the enemy, and life itself is inimical, for all its bounty. We must hold one another close against the cosmic perils.

Majorie Kinnan Rawlings

Cross Creek. 1942. Mockingbird Books Inc. p.259

the opposite of love

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Elie Wiesel 

U.S. News and World Report 27 October 1986

heal rather than hurt

The teaching that God created the earth and all things that are upon it gives to man a special task in the presence of suffering and pain. These were not found on the earth as God first made it. They came as a result of man’s fall. Man’s challenge then is to help reverse these consequences in every way he can. As God’s steward he must heal rather than hurt, build rather than destroy, love rather than hate all nature and its creatures. “How,” asked the Prophet Joseph Smith, “will the serpent ever lose its venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it?” Nature is under man’s dominion but not for sport. The Father marks every sparrow’s fall, and man must pay for every act of cruelty.

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Two, “Do Not I Fill Heaven and Earth?” p.18

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.


George Bernard Shaw - (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Anderson, in The Devil's Disciple, act 2