Hate Is Too Great | Martin Luther King, Jr. Quote
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Hate is too great
Martin Luther King, Jr. was so right when he said that hate is too much of a burden to carry. Hate pulls and weighs people down. There is a cost to hating other people and it will burden you and those around you.
Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to love people even when they hated him. Choosing love does not make someone else’s hate okay. To choose love is to chose to not be burdened down by hate and its negative effects.
Love in the face of hatred
Another reason why I like this quote is that it reminds me of my grandmother. I used to go to my grandmother’s house every day to help her put on her stockings. When I would go visit her, she would cook for me and we would talk about life.
One day she told me that her grandfather had been hung by white men. She told me that it took her father a long time to tell his kids about it. The reason her father waited to tell her about her grandfather was that he didn’t want his kids growing up hating white people.
When she told me that, it was pretty powerful. I thought about how thoughtful and forward-thinking it was of my great-grandfather to want his kids not to grow up hating. He didn’t want his kids to carry the burden of hate in their lives.
How can this quote help you?
The bad things that happened in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s time were not okay, but in choosing love Martin Luther King, Jr. chose forgiveness. Now, as it was then, people who hate and hurt others are never in the right. Choosing love and forgiveness can be more work, but it’s much more beneficial and long-lasting.
Forgiveness is choosing to release someone from the debt they owe you. It’s also choosing to receive an apology you never got. My grandmother’s story, along with the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. makes me see that carrying hate is a heavy burden. It costs you and the people around you. Hating someone will destroy you, not the people you are hating.
If you’re in a place of hating someone, you need to let go. Choose love over hate.
