Only the one who loves unpleasant and hostile people knows true love. The test of true love is a love for one’s enemies.
We can love the one who loves us back and whom we find pleasant with human love; but it is only with divine love that we can love our enemy. Human love can turn from love to hatred, but divine love is immutable. Nothing, not even death can destroy it. It is the essence of the soul.
If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive back as much. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful.
— Luke 6:33–36
Love your enemies—and you will have none.
— The Didache
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) and hate your enemy.’ 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, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”
— Matthew 5:43–45
If God makes everyone equal and does not differentiate between the evil and the good—and he knows people’s hearts—how can we, without knowing what is going on inside people’s hearts, divide them by appearance alone and love some while disliking others?
The passionate preference for some people over others, which is incorrectly referred to as love, is only a wilding onto which true love can be grafted and which will then bear fruit. But just as a wilding is not an apple tree and does not bear fruit, or only bears fruits that are bitter instead of sweet, so too passion is not love, and it either does people no good or causes more evil.
When the sprout of love first appears, it is tender, unable to bear being touched, and it only becomes powerful when it develops. Everything that people do to it only makes things worse for it. It needs only one thing: that no one conceal from it the sun of reason, which is the only thing that makes it grow.
Of all the people, the one who loves all his neighbors and does them good without discriminating whether they are good or bad is perfect.
— Muhammad
Counteract depravity with meekness: a sharp sword cannot cut soft silk.
With gentle words and kindness one can lead an elephant by a strand of hair.
— Saadi
Every time someone insults you and you feel angry at another person, try to remember that all people are equal children of God and that however unpleasant this person is to you, you must not stop loving him, as a brother, one who is the same as you, a child of God.
