I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
Interpretation
Love is a powerful and essential force for societal survival and overcoming negativity.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasizes the profound and enduring nature of love, asserting that it is not merely an unrealistic ideal but a practical necessity for humanity. He argues that love serves as a counterforce against hate and evil, suggesting that the only way to break the cycle of hatred is through the conscious choice to love, which is vital for the survival and progress of civilization.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of compassion in modern society.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
The aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love.
There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.
A strange passion is moving in my head My heart has become a bird which searches in the sky. Every part of me goes in different directions. Is it really so that the one I love is Everywhere?
For the most part, I feel really comfortable with what I've given to the people. I want to give it to them again.
Lovers who have nothing to do but love each other are not really to be envied; love and nothing else very soon is nothing else.
You don't have to prove to me you're beautiful to strangers, I've got loving eyes of my own.
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