Editorial: 'Hate is too great a burden to bear'
The concerted effort this week to deliver bombs to numerous high-profile Democratic political leaders and CNN's New York headquarters is the latest evidence of how fractured our society has become.
As the investigation into the origins of these acts of terrorism unfolds, we caution you not to succumb to that which likely motivated the person or people who sent the bombs.
Meanwhile, today, we'll let people of all political stripes, even those who predate our United States, talk about the toxicity of hate, for they do so more eloquently than we could.
Some thoughts to remember:
"Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means."
- Ronald Reagan
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"Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love."
- John Steinbeck
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"Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet."
- Maya Angelou
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"Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet."
- Bertrand Russell
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."
- Booker T. Washington
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"Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated."
- Coretta Scott King
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"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."
- Buddha
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"I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding."
- Tennessee Williams
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"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."
- Malachy McCourt
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"Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage."
- Thurgood Marshall
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"It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend. "
- Margaret Thatcher
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"We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
- Mitch Albom
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"This world of ours ... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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"It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get."
- Confucius
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"Hate has no place in the House of God."
- Desmond Tutu