“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., From various speeches and writings, notably referenced in ‘Strength to Love’ (1963) (1963)
Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to dismantling racial injustice in America, not through retaliation or bitterness, but through the disciplined, demanding practice of love. As a Baptist minister and the most visible leader of the civil rights movement, he understood that the philosophy of nonviolence was not passive. It required enormous inner strength.
This quote, drawn from his writings and speeches of the early 1960s, including the collection ‘Strength to Love,’ reveals something deeply personal about King. He does not say hate is wrong in some abstract moral sense. He says it is a burden, something that weighs on the person who carries it. That framing matters. He is speaking from experience, as someone who faced daily threats, imprisonment, and the hatred of millions, and still chose a different path.
The word ‘decided’ is important here. This was not a passive feeling for King. It was a conscious, repeated choice made under pressure. He understood that hatred corrodes the one who holds it, regardless of whether that hatred is justified.
His words carry the quiet authority of someone who had every reason to feel otherwise, and chose love anyway. That is what makes them worth sitting with.
