Personally, the year 2016 marked a year of milestones for me. Two were pretty big. I turned the big “4-0,” and I saw the manifestation of my hopes and dreams embodied through the formation of my mental health education and consulting company. But 2016 has also been very painful. Our home was vandalized, our garage doors spray painted with hate-filled symbols. Students at my children’s elementary school were told that they would be made slaves and that a wall would be built to separate them from others once Donald Trump was elected president. The barrage of hate rhetoric and disturbing, violent images in the media are overwhelming and sometimes feels like too much to handle. The divide in our country continues to grow, and we seem to have adopted an “us vs. them” mentality that only further propagates hatred and exclusion.
In direct opposition to the current sociopolitical climate, I decided to populate the atmosphere with beautiful quotes about love and the celebration of our humanity. When the chaos in our world becomes unmanageable, reflect on these thoughts from some of the best poets, authors, activists, and humanitarians of our time.
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope”
– Maya Angelou
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other”
– Mother Teresa
“Returning hate for hate multiples 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”
– Martin Luther King, Jr
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive”
– Dalai Lama
“The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us”
– Paulo Coelho
“Hate – it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet”
– Maya Angelou
“All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others”
– Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear”
– Martin Luther King, Jr
“We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization”
– Martin Luther King, Jr
“Where there is love there is life”
– Mahatma Gandhi
