MLK, Jr.

I have decided to stick with love...

hate is too great a burden to bear.

I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love.

Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967

I originally shared this quotation on inviting's blog. This one struck me because of the conscious choice to choose love over hate; it goes along with my desire to reduce negative influence and downers in my life and to choose laughter and joy, and love.

But when reading other quotes, so many are lovely and nicely phrased, but to live in a time when it needed to be said? How hard that era must have been...

-ashley