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Hate Quotes

Shakespeare, Byron, Benjamin Franklin, Jesus and Audre Lorde lead. The best-sourced lines are King’s, from Strength to Love (1963), that hatred paralyzes life and love releases it, and Rousseau’s, from the Confessions, that hatred, like love, renders its votaries credulous. Samuel Butler’s notebooks, published in 1912, have the most cynical entry: it does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.

Two entries are flagged as disputed. “Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed” is credited to Bertrand Russell. “I don’t have prejudice, I hate everyone equally” is credited to H. L. Mencken.

Random quote on Hate

Most quoted on hate:

It may be that hope misleads. But hate—hate corrupts. I have been too quick to hate. I become like what I abhor.

Stephen R. Donaldson Lord Foul's Bane (1977)

I do believe,
Induced by potent circumstances, that
You are mine enemy; and make my challenge
You shall not be my judge.

William Shakespeare Henry VIII (1613)

Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven
Contain my deadliest enemy and me.

Robert Southey

Hatred is the anger of the weak.

Alphonse Daudet

Invented by the calumniating enemy.

François Rabelais Pantagruel (1532)

We are not hated for who we are. We are hated for what we do.

Pat Buchanan Where the Right Went Wrong (2004)

Whom they have injured they also hate.

Seneca the Younger

Our No. 1 enemy is ignorance. And I believe that is the No. 1 enemy for everyone — it's not understanding what actually is going on in the world.

Julian Assange

To grow up metabolizing hatred like daily bread means that eventually every human interaction becomes tainted with the negative passion and intensity of its by-products — anger and cruelty.

Audre Lorde Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

The world is large when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide;
But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side.

John Boyle O'Reilly

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.

Antisthenes

But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you.

Jesus

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

These two hated with a hate
Found only on the stage.

Lord Byron

"Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929)

Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton What Will He Do With It? (1858)

There's no hate lost between us.

Thomas Middleton The Witch (1616)

Hatreds are the cinders of affection.

Walter Raleigh

Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Winston Churchill The Second World War (1939)

I hate and I love. Perchance you ask why I do that. I know not, but I feel that I do and I am tortured.

Catullus

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