“How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.”
The More Loving One (1957)
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W. H. Auden 122
Anglo-American poet 1907–1973Related quotes
"The Way Things Used To Be" (song)
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "The Way Things Used To Be" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq_p37g6xRU (song on YouTube)
Song lyrics
Peter Camenzind (1904)
From The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael, CLC, Fort Washington, USA 1999, ISBN 0-87508-790-6.
Mohican Press interview (2005)
Context: There came a point in time, with all the difficulty, all the frustration, where I was quite content to be where I was. I suppose one could call it a kind of enchantment, I don't know. The shoot was so difficult on the crew and the extras. Often, it was unpleasant for them and many left. But difficulty also creates its own kind of beauty, I suppose. And while I don't revisit it unless asked, there is this sense of apartness I felt during that period of time from our own world. Perhaps the others felt the same, I'm unsure, and that is what you might feel when you watch the movie. We were all so different, temperamentally from one another, it's impossible to believe that we were together for so long. The cast and crew. How could we be more different from one another? It's difficult to imagine. But something lovely came of it.
“Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies?”
This passage contains some phrases King later used in "Where Do We Go From Here?" (1967) which has a section below.
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies-or else? The chain reaction of evil-Hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
