{"id":7980,"date":"2022-01-17T22:57:30","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T22:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/?p=7980"},"modified":"2023-07-14T01:53:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T01:53:05","slug":"martin-luther-king-jr-meditations-on-love-over-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/martin-luther-king-jr-meditations-on-love-over-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther King Jr.: Meditations On Love Over Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Today, we celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr., and reflect on his potent messages on how love triumphs hate. In many ways, King was a prophet of love, as bell hooks writes in her essay collection all about love.<\/em> Certainly ahead of his time, King’s profound vision of the world as a loving and peaceful place were not merely a Utopian fantasy. We must return to love being at the root of everything, because without it, we cannot create a future that is sustainable for the new generations. <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In a 1967 lecture protesting war, King said: “When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.” <\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Keeping King’s definition of love at the forefront of our minds, here are various quotes from the Civil Rights activist to ruminate on.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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1. \u201cI have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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2. \u201cLove is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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3. \u201cLet no man pull you so low as to hate him.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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 4. \u201cNonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one\u2019s whole being into the being of another.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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5. \u201cMan must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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6. \u201cTrue peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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7. \u201cPower without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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8. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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9. \u201cThere can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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10. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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 11. \u201cLet us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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12. “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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13. \u201cHate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why psychiatrists say, \u201cLove or perish.\u201d Hate is too great a burden to bear.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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14. \u201cIn some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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15. \u201cWe shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will. And we shall continue to love you.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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16. \u201cIf one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend\u2019s own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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17. \u201cThat\u2019s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There\u2019s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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18. \u201cYou know, a lot of people don\u2019t love themselves. And they go through life with deep and haunting emotional conflicts. So the length of life means that you must love yourself. And you know what loving yourself also means? It means that you\u2019ve got to accept yourself.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

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Today, we celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr., and reflect on his potent messages on how love triumphs hate. In many ways, King was a prophet of love, as bell hooks writes in her essay collection all about love. Certainly ahead of his time, King’s profound vision of the world as a loving and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1298],"tags":[31,1260,955,1076,1261,51],"class_list":["post-7980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-meditation","tag-featured","tag-love","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-mlk","tag-mlk-day","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}