Quotes about hate

A collection of quotes on the topic of hate, love, likeness, people.

Best quotes about hate

Erwin Rommel photo

“War without Hate”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Krieg ohne Haß
In the preamble written by his wife of the 1953 edition published by the publishing house "Heidenheimer Zeitung", she clearly states that all the chapter titles as well as the book title were chosen by the editors, thus not Erwin Rommel himself.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Malcolm X photo
Malcolm X photo

“Who taught you to hate yourself?”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
Caligula photo

“Let them hate us as long as they fear us.”

Caligula (12–41) 3rd Emperor of Ancient Rome, a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.”

Source: Invisible Monsters

William Shakespeare photo

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”

Source: Antony and Cleopatra

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

Quotes about hate

Kurt Cobain photo

“Hate your enemies
Save your friends
Find your place
Speak the truth.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … 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.

Kurt Cobain photo

“I would rather be hated for what I am, then loved for what I am not.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Variant: I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

Kurt Cobain photo
Yoko Ono photo

“The opposite of love is fear, not hate.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

2 July 2010.
Twitter messages

José Baroja photo
Kanye West photo

“I hate when I'm on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Tweet http://twitter.com/#!/kanyewest/status/27590685489

Kurt Cobain photo

“If it was up to me, I'd get more oil tanker drivers drunk. I don’t value music much. I like the Beatles, but I hate Paul McCartney. I like Led Zeppelin, but I hate Robert Plant. I like the Who, but I hate Roger Daltrey.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in The NIRVANA Reader: 1988 – 1992 (Published December 2008).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Bob Marley photo

“Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts; put your vision to reality.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Song lyrics
Context: Life is one big road with lots of signs,
So when you riding through the ruts,
Don't you complicate your mind
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy
Don't bury your thoughts; put your vision to reality

"Wake Up and Live!” on Survival (1979)

Groucho Marx photo
Billie Eilish photo

“I hate smiling. It makes me feel weak and powerless and small. I've always been like that; I don't smile in any pictures.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a13040159/billie-eilish-interview/

Ozzy Osbourne photo

“I hated school. Hated it.”

Source: I Am Ozzy

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Paul Ehrenfest photo

“Einstein, my upset stomach hates your theory — it almost hates you yourself! How am I to provide for my students? What am I to answer to the philosophers?”

Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933) Dutch physicist

about the theory of general relativity, in a letter dated November 24, 1919, to Albert Einstein.

Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“I don't dislike adversities. What I dislike is myself being weak. I really hate it, but I think being weak means that you have the potential to become strong.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2014
Original: (ja) 逆境は嫌いじゃないので。弱くなってる自分がすごく嫌なんです。それは本当に嫌いですけど、でも弱いというのは強くなれる可能性があると思ってるんで。
Source: Excerpt from a press conference at the NHK Trophy 2014, held on 30 November 2014, aired the same day in ネオスポ (Neospo) on TV Tokyo and 15 December 2014 in News Every on NTV.

Bobby Fischer photo

“Jews hate nature and the natural order, because it's pure and beautiful, and also because it's bigger and stronger than they are, and they feel that they can not fully control it. Nature's beauty and harmony stands in stark contrast to their squalidness and ugliness, and that makes them hate it all the more. Jews are destroyers. They are anti-humans.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, February 19 2005 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_31_2.MP3I studied that first Karpov-Kasparov match for a year and a half before I cracked it, what they were doing, and discovered that it was all prearranged move-by-move. There's no doubt of it in my mind.Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement. It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative.
2000s

Anthony Kiedis photo
Saddam Hussein photo

“I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Saddam Hussein Farewell Letter http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16368242/ (MSNBC online)
Statement in a farewell letter written to the Iraqi people, written Nov. 5, 2006, released Dec. 27, 2006.

“Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.”

Hajo Meyer (1924–2014) Dutch physicist

Quoted in Graeme Murray and Chris Watt, " Auschwitz survivor: 'Israel acts like Nazis' http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/auschwitz-survivor-israel-acts-like-nazis-1.1000918", Sunday Herald, January 24, 2010. Retrieved on March 27, 2010.

Hillel the Elder photo

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when? That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow [...] go and learn.”

Hillel the Elder (-112–9 BC) Mishnah rabbi

Quoted by Jan Lundius, in Does WFP Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?, Inter Press Service News Agency, (December 2020)

David Lynch photo
George Lincoln Rockwell photo
Al Franken photo

“If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. … They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way.”

Al Franken (1951) American comedian and politician

Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (2003)
Context: If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America.... They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.
That's why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well.

Al-Farabi photo

“A just city should favor justice and the just, hate tyranny and injustice, and give them both their just desserts.”

Al-Farabi (872–951) Philosopher in 10th century Central Asia

H. Gibb et al., eds., "Mazalim", The Dictionary of Islam vol. IV (Leiden: Brill, 1991)

Morrissey photo
Morrissey photo

“It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from the 1986 song "I Know It's Over"
From songs

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Mikhail Lermontov photo

“And everything that he saw before him
He despised or hated.”

Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841) Russian writer, poet and painter

"The Demon" (1830)
Poems

Michael Jackson photo

“Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)

Michael Jackson photo
Henry Rollins photo
Oskar Schindler photo

“I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it. Really, nothing more.”

Oskar Schindler (1908–1974) German industrialist and Holocaust rescuer

On his metamorphosis from a Nazi party member to a savior of Jews in witnessing the genocidal practices of the "Final Solution", as quoted in "Schindler : Why did he do it?" (2010) by Louis Bülow http://www.auschwitz.dk/why/why.htm

Oskar Schindler photo

“What is there to say? They are my friends. I would do it again, over and over — for I hate cruelty and intolerance.”

Oskar Schindler (1908–1974) German industrialist and Holocaust rescuer

Remark in 1972, as quoted in "Schindler : Why did he do it?" (2010) by Louis Bülow.

Malala Yousafzai photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“I hate men who are afraid of women's strength.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Jim Morrison photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Caspar David Friedrich photo

“You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote from: Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape; Joseph Koerner, p. 66; as cited in the article 'Caspar David Friedrich's Medieval Burials', Karl Whittington - http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring12/whittington-on-caspar-david-friedrichs-medieval-burials
undated

Erwin Schrödinger photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Source: Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

James Baldwin photo

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

"Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)
Source: The Fire Next Time

Norman Vincent Peale photo
Malcolm X photo
Erik H. Erikson photo
Isabel II do Reino Unido photo

“It has always been easy to hate and destroy. To build and to cherish is much more difficult.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

1957 Christmas Broadcast; quoted on royal website http://www.royal.gov.uk/imagesandbroadcasts/thequeenschristmasbroadcasts/christmasbroadcasts/christmasbroadcast1957.aspx (25 December 1957)

Madonna photo

“I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, 'Hi, how are you?”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

I hate words that don't have any reason or meaning. Also I hate it when people smoke in elevators and closed in places. It's just so rude.
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/madonna_2.htm.

Madonna photo
Osama bin Laden photo
George Holyoake photo

“Moved by a generous eagerness to turn men's attention to the power which dwelt in circumstances, Mr. Owen devised the instructive phrase, that "man's character was formed for him and not by him." He used the unforgettable inference that "man is the creature of circumstances." The school of material improvers believed they could put in permanent force right circumstances. The great dogma was their charter of encouragement. To those who hated without thought It seemed a restrictive doctrine to be asked to admit that there were extenuating circumstances in the career of every rascal. To the clergy with whom censure was a profession, and who held that all sin was wilful, man being represented as the "creature of circumstances," appeared a denial of moral responsibility. When they were asked to direct hatred against error, and pity the erring — who had inherited so base a fortune of incapacity and condition — they were wroth exceedingly, and said it would be making a compromise with sin. The idea of the philosopher of circumstances was that the very murderer in his last cell had been born with a staple in his soul, to which the villainous conditions of his life had attached an unseen chain, which had drawn him to the gallows, and that the rope which was to hang him was but the visible part. Legislators since that day have come to admit that punishment is justifiable only as far as it has preventive influence. To use the great words of Hobbes, "Punishment regardeth not the past, only the future."”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

George Jacob Holyoake in The History of Co-operation in England (1875; 1902).

Jean Racine photo

“I loved him too much not to hate him at all!”

Je l'ai trop aimé pour ne le point haïr!
Source: Hermione, Andromaque (1667), act II, scene I.

Tupac Shakur photo
Amy Lee photo
William Shakespeare photo

“My only love sprung from my only hate.”

Source: Romeo and Juliet

José Martí photo

“Mankind is composed of two sorts of men — those who love and create, and those who hate and destroy.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

"Letter to a Cuban Farmer" (1893)

Albert Lutuli photo

“I do not hate the white man; you see, his position of domination has placed him in a position of moral weakness.”

Albert Lutuli (1898–1967) South African politician

As quoted in Guy Arnold (1976), The last bunker: a report on white South Africa today, p. 192.

Mikhail Bakunin photo

“I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because humanity is for me unthinkable without liberty.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

As quoted in Michael Bakunin (1937) by E.H. Carr, p. 356<!-- New York: NY, Vintage Books -->
Context: I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because humanity is for me unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State, whereas I want the abolition of the State, the final eradication of the principle of authority and the patronage proper to the State, which under the pretext of moralizing and civilizing men has hitherto only enslaved, persecuted, exploited and corrupted them. I want to see society and collective or social property organized from below upwards, by way of free association, not from above downwards, by means of any kind of authority whatsoever.

Jeff Buckley photo
Bhagawan Nityananda photo
John Dryden photo
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar photo
Osama bin Laden photo

“Contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden?”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

Meir Kahane photo

“There is no greater anti-Semite that the Jewish one, and none hates the Jewish people more than the Jewish traitor and apostate.”

Meir Kahane (1932–1990) American/Israeli political activist and rabbi

Source: Never Again! (1972), Ch. 2: The Deafening Silence

William Shakespeare photo
William Shakespeare photo
Charles de Gaulle photo

“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Attributed to de Gaulle by Romain Gary, Life, May 9, 1969
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

Justin Bieber photo

“When I was coming up, trying to get to where I am now, people were so happy for me. They were rooting for me. Now that I'm on top, everyone wants to bring me down. Everyone's trying to tug at me and take my spot… A lot of people say they hate Justin Bieber who haven't even listened to my music. They just hate the idea of me.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Euripidés photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Euripidés photo

“Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour”

Source: Medea

Lyndon LaRouche photo
Dita Von Teese photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Grigori Rasputin photo

“I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people…I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”

Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic

Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Sophie Scholl photo

“Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, p. 223; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote.
Disputed
Context: Isn't it bewildering … that everything is so beautiful, despite all the horrors that exist? Lately I've noticed something grand and mysterious peering into my sheer joy in all that is lovely — the sense of a Creator whom innocent creation worships with its beauty. Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot. And so I must try to throw myself on the side of the victor.

John Amos Comenius photo
Karl Lagerfeld photo
George Jones photo

“I've seen hate change many things for the worse. I've seen love change everything for the good.”

George Jones (1931–2013) American musician, singer and songwriter

Source: I Lived to Tell It All (1996, ebook 2014), Page 205.

Ennius photo

“Whom they fear, they hate. And whom one hates, one hopes to see him dead.”
Quem metuunt oderunt; quem quisque odit, perisse expetit.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in De Officiis, Book II, Chapter 23

Pierre Trudeau photo

“A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Speech to the Ukrainian - Canadian Congress, Winnipeg, Manitoba (9 October 1971)
Context: There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian. What could be more absurd than the concept of an "all Canadian" boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate.

José José photo
Corrie ten Boom photo

“Corrie, if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love! We must find the way, you and I, no matter how long it takes.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Source: The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Marilyn Monroe photo
Muhammad Ali photo
Tupac Shakur photo

“More money means litigating, more player-hating. Got a cell at the pen, for me waiting. Is this my fate?”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

"Hold Ya Head" https://play.google.com/music/preview/Te5ppuyfquh4t6lnlla3zs6w33e?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics
1990s, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996)

Alain de Botton photo
Socrates photo

“There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great;
Christian love among the Churches looked the twin of heathen hate.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 85

Anthony Hopkins photo
Justin Martyr photo

“The demons have always effected that all those who ever so little strived to live by logos and shun vice be hated.”

Justin Martyr (100–165) early Christian martyr

Source: Second Apology, in Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 40

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo