a double victory

To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory." 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 50, 51

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 aftermath of violence

Noncooperation and nonviolent resistance were means of stirring and awakening moral truths in one's opponents, of evoking the humanity that, Martin believed, existed in each of us. The means, therefore, had to be consistent with the ends. And the end, as Martin conceived it, was greater than any of its parts, greater than any single issue. "The end is redemption and reconciliation," he believed. "The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness."

Coretta Scott King

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

the paradox of vengefulness

No one could reach Louie, because he had never really come home. In prison camp, he’d been beaten into dehumanized obedience to a world order in which the Bird was absolute sovereign, and it was under this world order that he still lived. The Bird had taken his dignity and left him feeling humiliated, ashamed, and powerless, and Louie believed that only the Bird could restore him, by suffering and dying in the grip of his hands. A once singularly hopeful man now believed that his only home lay in murder.

The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird’s death to free himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.


Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Random House. 2010. 496 pages.

praying for your enemies

If you wish to learn the love of God, you have to begin by praying for your enemies. That’s not as easy as it may sound. Prayers for people entail wanting the best for them; and that’s far from easy if it has to do with a fellow student who speaks ill of you, a girl who finds someone else more attractive than you, a “friend” who gets you to do all those awkward little chores for him, or a colleague who’s trying his best to get your job. But each time you pray, really pray, for your enemies, you’ll notice that your heart is being made new. Within your prayer, you quickly discover that your enemies are in fact your fellow human beings loved by God just as much as yourself. The result is that the walls you’ve thrown up between “him and me,” “us and them,” “ours and theirs” disappear. Your heart grows deeper and broader and opens up more and more to all the human beings with whom God has peopled the earth.

I find it difficult to conceive of a more concrete way to love than by praying for one’s enemies. It makes you conscious of the hard fact that, in God’s eyes, you’re no more and no less worthy of being loved than any other person, and it creates an awareness of profound solidarity with all other human beings. It creates in you a world-embracing compassion and provides you in increasing measure with a heart free of the compulsive urge to coercion and violence. And you’ll be delighted to discover that you can no longer remain angry with people for whom you’ve really and truly prayed. You will find that you start speaking differently to them or about them, and that you’re actually willing to do well to those who’ve offended you in some way.



Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living A Prayerful Life, Compiled & Edited by Wendy Wilson Greer. 1999. p. 154, 155.  Originally quoted in Letters to Marc about Jesus. 1988.

how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him

"When the posse had thinned down to about seven men I turned Bo around and taken the reins in my teeth and rode right at them boys firing them two navy sixes I carry on my saddle. I guess they was all married men who loved their families as they scattered and run for home."

"That is hard to believe."

"What is?"

"One man riding at seven men like that."

"It is true enough. We done it in the war. I seen a dozen bold riders stampede a full troop of regular cavalry. You go for a man hard enough and fast enough and he don't have time to think about how many is with him, he thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him."


True Grit by Charles Portis, 1969.

bold talk

Rooster: “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which’ll it be?”

Ned: “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.”

Rooster: “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch.”


True Grit, a novel by Charles Portis (1968). 1969 screenplay by Marguerite Roberts. (from the film)

with only bare hands

Sebanta ha se bokwe ka diatla (The attacks of the wild beast cannot be averted with only bare hands).

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Back Bay Books. 1995. p. 271

a real measure of who we

As we listen to the messages of this conference, we will be touched in our hearts and make resolutions and commitments to do better. But on Monday morning we will return to work, school, neighborhoods, and to a world that in many cases is in turmoil. Many in this world are afraid and angry with one another. While we understand these feelings, we need to be civil in our discourse and respectful in our interactions. This is especially true when we disagree. The Savior taught us to love even our enemies. The vast majority of our members heed this counsel. Yet there are some who feel that venting their personal anger or deeply held opinions is more important than conducting themselves as Jesus Christ lived and taught. I invite each one of us individually to recognize that how we disagree is a real measure of who we are and whether we truly follow the Savior. It is appropriate to disagree, but it is not appropriate to be disagreeable. Violence and vandalism are not the answer to our disagreements. If we show love and respect even in adverse circumstances, we become more like Christ.


Quentin L. Cook, "We Follow Jesus Christ." General Conference, April 2010.

I will fight your battles

D&C 105: 13, 14 Therefore it is expedient in me that mine elders should wait for a little season, for the redemption of Zion. For behold, I do not require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion; for, as I said in a former commandment, even so will I fulfill – I will fight your battles.

the capacity and fitness for resisting

I had hoped to improve my status and that of my people through the British Empire. Whilst in England I was enjoying the protection of the British Fleet, and taking shelter as I did under its armed might, I was directly participating in its potential violence. Therefore, if I desired to retain my connection with the empire and to live under its banner, one of three courses was open to me: I could declare open resistance to the war and in accordance with the law of Satyagraha, boycott the Empire until it changed its military policy; or I could seek imprisonment by civil disobedience of such of its laws as were fit to be disobeyed. Or, I could participate in the war on the side of the empire and thereby acquire the capacity and fitness for resisting the violence of war. I lacked this capacity and fitness, so I thought there was nothing for it but to serve in the war.


An autobiography: My Experiments with Truth by Gandhi (Mahatma), Mahadev Haribhai Desai. Beacon Press. 1993. p.350

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.


Alexander Solzhenitsyn - (b. 1918), Russian novelist. Nobel Prize lecture, 1973 (published in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record, ed. by Leopold Labedz, 1974).

I never had it in mind to shoot at any man, ma'am, but when somebody takes up a gun and comes for you in anger, he borrows grief. He was fetching trouble, so I gave him what he asked for.


Louis L'Amour. Mojave Crossing by Louis L'Amour. 1964. P.34

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

Kurt Vonnegut, Cold Turkey, In These Times, May 10, 2004