Love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can't stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they'll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That's love, you see. It is redemptive.
Interpretation
Love holds the capacity to redeem and transform individuals over time.
In this quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. suggests that love possesses a profound power that can bring about change in people. He emphasizes the importance of persistently showing love and kindness, even when faced with resistance or negativity from others. He believes that such unconditional love can eventually lead to transformation and redemption, as individuals cannot withstand the weight of true love indefinitely, despite their initial reactions of guilt or enmity. Ultimately, love is portrayed as a powerful force that can lead to healing and change.
In practice
In a speech about community and acceptance, one might quote this to encourage people to show love towards those who struggle.
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.
My wish isn't to mean_x000D_ everything to everyone_x000D_ but something to someone.
I believe that marriage isn't between a man and woman; but between love and love.
There are only two energies at the core of the human experience: love and fear. Love grants freedom, fear takes it away. Love invites full expression, fear punishes it. Love invites you, always, to break the bonds of ignorance.
The psychological and physiological mechanism of love is so complex that at a certain period in his life a young man must concentrate all his energy on coming to grips with it, and in this way he misses the actual content of the love: the woman he loves. (In this he is much like a young violinist who cannot concentrate on the emotional content of a piece until the technique required to play it comes automatically.)
Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not clearly tell you so. For it was Jesus - our Jesus himself - who said: 'You are my friends if you do what I command you'. Love demands effort and a personal commitment to the will of God. It means discipline and sacrifice, but it also means joy and human fulfilment.
I knew from the minute I saw her (Hillary) that if I got involved with her I would fall in love with her.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.