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.

(Oct. 1986)

- Elie Wiesel

It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.

- Andre Gide

Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love. Hatred which is completely vanquished by love, passes into love; and love is thereupon greater, than if hatred had not preceded it.

- Baruch Spinoza

You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.

- Harry Emerson Fosdick

Those who have experienced the most, have suffered so much that they have ceased to hate. Hate is more for those with a slightly guilty conscience, and who by chewing on old hate in times of peace wish to demonstrate how great they were during the war.

- Thor Heyerdahl

Hate is a disease. It is fear's messenger and it makes us do terrible things in a shadow of our better selves, of what we could be.

- Colin Farrell

Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings.

- Alice Miller

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy

- Francis of Assisi

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

- James Baldwin

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked by a construction site on a temporary sidewalk the width of one person. A white man appeared at the other end, recognized Tutu, and said, "I don't make way for gorillas." At which Tutu stepped aside, made a deep sweeping gesture, and said, "Ah, yes, but I do."

- Walter Wink

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

- Charles Caleb Colton

Passionate hatreds can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. These people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunies for battle.

- Eric Hoffer



Without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action.

- William Hazlitt



If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

- Hermann Hesse



Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

- Albert Schweitzer



During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

- Howard Thurman



Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. .

- George Washington Carver



The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

- Eric Hoffer



We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

- Jonathan Swift



I love humanity but I hate people.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay



Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

- Bertrand Russell



For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

- Ecclesiastes



Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

- Robert F. Kennedy



Hatred ever kills, love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi



The common dogma [of fundamentalists] is fear of modern knowledge, inability to cope with the fast change in a scientific-technological society, and the real breakdown in apparent moral order in recent years.... That is why hate is the major fuel, fear is the cement of the movement, and superstitious ignorance is the best defense against the dangerous new knowledge. ... When you bring up arguments that cast serious doubts on their cherished beliefs you are not simply making a rhetorical point, you are threatening their whole Universe and their immortality. That provokes anger and quite frequently violence. ... Unfortunately you cannot reason with them and you even risk violence in confronting them. Their numbers will decline only when society stabilizes, and adapts to modernity.

AOL Member

- G Gaia



Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

- Eleanor Roosevelt



It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.

from The Scarlet Letter

- Nathaniel Hawthorne



The sage said, "The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget.

Spiritual Dimensions of Psychology

- Hazrat Inayat Khan



Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it.

The Snow Queen

- Joan D. Vinge



The inventor of their heaven empties into it all the nations of the earth, in one common jumble. All are on an equality absolute, no one of them ranking another; they have to be "brothers"; they have to mix together, pray together, harp together, hosannah together--whites, niggers, Jews, everybody--there's no distinction. Here in the earth all nations hate each other, and every one of them hates the Jew. Yet every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get into it. He really does. And when he is in a holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he were only there he would take all the populace to his heart, and hug, and hug, and hug!

Letters from the Earth

- Mark Twain



I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.

- Edith Cavell



But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness -- each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked -- each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.

- Herbert Butterfield



I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... if a Christian voted for Clinton, he sinned against God. It's that simple. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country... former leader of Operation Rescue

- Randall Terry