Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
Interpretation
Hate harms the person who harbors it more than its target.
Coretta Scott King's quote emphasizes the self-destructive nature of hate. It suggests that holding onto hate not only burdens the individual emotionally but also detracts from their own well-being and peace, while ultimately doing little to harm the one who is hated.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech on the importance of forgiveness.
I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy. The civil rights movement thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion. My husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement.
...We have an historic opportunity for a great global healing and renewal. If we will accept the challenge of nonviolent activism with faith, courage, and determination, we can bring this great vision of a world united in peace and harmony from a distant ideal into glowing reality.
I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.
It doesn't matter how strong your opinions are. If you don't use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem.
Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.
People don't ever have to starve to death; there are solutions. We have failed if we can't eradicate hunger in Africa and Ethiopia.
Those who speak much are blamed, those who speak little are blamed. In this world there are none who are not blamed. Try not to blame.
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.
However fascinating you may think you are, there is a limit to what you can know about yourself.
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