“When your heart has been broken,
Hard words have been spoken.
It ain't easy - but it's only love.”
Bryan Adams (1959) Canadian singer-songwriter
It's Only Love, performed with Tina Turner
Song lyrics, Reckless (1984)
“While over Alabama earth
These words are gently spoken:
Serve — and hate will die unborn.
Love — and chains are broken.”
"Alabama Earth (at Booker Washington's grave)," from the anthology Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers (1941), ed. Arna Bontemps
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These words are gently spoken:
Serve — and hate will die unborn.
Love — and chains are brok…" by Langston Hughes?
Langston Hughes79
American writer and social activist 1902–1967Related quotes
Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter
National Airs, Oft in the Stilly Night http://www.james-joyce-music.com/song04_lyrics.html, st. 1 (1815).
“Fearless people,
Careless needle.
Harsh words spoken,
And lives are broken.”
Seal (musician) (1963) British singer-songwriter
"Prayer For The Dying"
Seal (1994)
“Tis a word that's quickly spoken,
Which being restrained, a heart is broken.”
John Fletcher The Spanish Curate
The Spanish Curate (licensed 24 October 1622; 1647), Act II, scene 5, Song.
Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian
Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons (2006)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
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.
“He is broken, far from free
Words were spoken, 'tween him and me”
Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter
"Temporary And Eternal" - Live performance, later used on the compilation album The Keep (16 May 1995) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIqnvFAoHs <br class="br">Equipoise (1993) <br class="br">Context: He is broken, far from free<br>Words were spoken, 'tween him and me:<br>"I had friends, yes, I was admired<br>I'm so old now, feel so tired."<br>Well he walks to the gate and he looks behind<br>at life in rewind<br>And wishes he had known these things<br>while still alive.
Frances Wright (1795–1852) American activist
<!-- http://www.vialibri.net/552display_i/year_1820_600_491675.html DEAD LINK as of 2014·09·06 --> Letter to William James MacNeven (1820); quoted in "The Red Harlot of Liberty: The Rise and Fall of Frances Wright" by Kimberly Nichols in Newtopia Magazine (15 May 2013) http://newtopiamagazine.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/the-red-harlot-of-liberty-the-rise-and-fall-of-frances-wright/ <br class="br">Context: Another revolution! Naples free and all of Italy in insurrection! How wonderful has been the march of the human mind in these last thirty years … so may it be till the last link of the chains of slavery is broken and the banner of freedom waves over the whole earth!
“Passion I hate, and spirit does me wrong. Let us love gently.”
Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal
Source: Les Fleurs du Mal
“Saints do not die. It is their lot,
To die while on this earth to all that God is not.”
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer
The Cherubinic Wanderer