Thomas Merton on enemies

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone — we find it with another.

Everybody makes fun of virtue, which by now has, as its primary meaning, an affectation of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

John F. Kennedy1917–1963

• Forgiveness

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Drift-wood. QuoteInvestigator (Aug. 19, 2019)

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

William Blake1757–1827Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 4, plate 91, line 1

• Forgiveness
• Friendship