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by Benedict Fernandez
Why Should We Love Our Enemies?
Plus
Quotes By
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
As
we celebrate the Martin Luther king's Day (Jan. 19, '04), let us look at
the Man through some excerpts.
"Why should we love our enemies"?
"The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiples 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."
"Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does to the person hated. This is understandable, for hate brings irreparable damage to its victims."
"But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true"
"A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy be getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power" Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Stores:
Strength To Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Edited by Clayborne Carson
More
On Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.
(Courtesy
of http://members.aol.com/klove01/marquote.htm)
QUOTES
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
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Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.
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A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
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There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.
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If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.
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I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
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Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.
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http://members.aol.com/klove01/marquote.htm
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