Most of us would like to see our enemies defeated and punished, and it is an ironic (and gruesome) human truth that many of us unconsciously entertain the same feeling about our friends and the members of our family. For there is a curious ambivalence about the human soul: it can love and hate the same object at the same time with almost equal force. Society suspects this. It half realizes that civilization is perpetually menaced because of this primary hostility of men toward one another. Therefore, culture has to summon every possible reinforcement against these aggressive hatreds. Hence the ideal command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. This commandment is the strongest defense against human hatred, and even though it is impossible to fulfill it completely, men cling to it. For they unconsciously realize that if this commandment were to be swept away, the world would be a place of chaos and desolation.
Joshua Loth LiebmanTags: ambivalence love-of-neighbor
Once a man ceases to be of service to his neighbor, he begins to be a burden to him.
Fulton J. SheenTags: love-of-neighbor
We Catholics have not only to do our best to keep down our own warring passions and live decent lives, which will often be hard enough in this odd world we have been born into. We have to bear witness to moral principles which the world owned yesterday and has begun to turn its back on today. We have to disapprove of some of the things our neighbors do, without being stuffy about it; we have to be charitable towards our neighbors and make great allowances for them, without falling into the mistake of condoning their low standards and so encouraging them to sin. Two of the most difficult and delicate tasks a man can undertake; and it happens, nowadays, not only to priests, to whom it comes as part of their professional duty, but to ordinary lay people...So we must know what are the unalterable principles we hold, and why we hold them; we must see straight in a world that is full of moral fog.
Ronald KnoxTags: morality authenticity principles love-of-neighbor
For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.
Fyodor DostoevskyTags: love-of-neighbor
I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience.
Fyodor DostoevskyTags: love-of-neighbor
One can love one's neighbours in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it's almost impossible.
Fyodor DostoevskyTags: love-of-neighbor
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