Love Your Enemies Quotes

“Anyone who can’t tell the difference between an ordinary Bernie Sanders supporter and a Stalinist revolutionary, or between Donald Trump’s average voter and a Nazi, is either willfully ignorant or needs to get out of the house more. Today, our public discourse is shockingly hyperbolic in ascribing historically murderous ideologies to the tens of millions of ordinary Americans with whom we strongly disagree. Just because you disagree with something doesn’t mean it’s hate speech or the person saying it is a deviant.”
― Arthur C Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“We don’t have an anger problem in American politics. We have a contempt problem. . . . If you listen to how people talk to each other in political life today, you notice it is with pure contempt. When somebody around you treats you with contempt, you never quite forget it. So if we want to solve the problem of polarization today, we have to solve the contempt problem.”
― Arthur C Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“There is evidence that as we become less exposed to opposing viewpoints, we become less logically competent as people.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“If we want more unity and less contempt, however, we need to get out of our comfort zones, go where we are not welcome, and spend time talking and interacting with people with whom we disagree—not on lightweight stuff like sports and food, but on hard moral things.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“When I call for a standard of love, I am asking us all to listen to our hearts, of course. But also to think clearly, look at the facts, and do difficult things when necessary, so that we can truly lift people up and bring them together.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Rule 3. Say no to contempt. Treat others with love and respect, even when it’s difficult.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“This is a classic weaponization of values. It’s not something that good or moral leaders should ever do.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“have moral objectives (why) and we have policies to achieve those objectives (what). If you want to be a unifying and persuasive leader, you start by saying, “I share your why but I don’t share your what. And I think that my what is more effective to meet your why. When it comes”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“We don’t have an anger problem in American politics. We have a contempt problem. . . . If you listen to how people talk to each other in political life today, you notice it is with pure contempt. When somebody around you treats you with contempt, you never quite forget it. So if we want to solve the problem of polarization today, we have to solve the contempt problem.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“We speed past the questions that would help us get to know another person’s story and instead immediately look to the places of greatest difference and disagreement.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“You know what our world needs: more love, less contempt.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Resolve to pay attention to ideas, not just politics.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Rule 5. Tune out: Disconnect more from the unproductive debates.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Rule 4. Disagree better. Be part of a healthy competition of ideas.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“I must come back to a point I have made repeatedly: never treat others with contempt, even if you believe they deserve it.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“But never once did he say that Jimmy Carter hated America, was a crook, or wanted to see the American dream die. He knew Jimmy Carter was a good man who loved his country—he just had, in Reagan’s opinion, the wrong ideas for how to make America great again.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Don’t remember this from the 2016 campaign? That’s because those words were uttered by Ronald Reagan on September 1, 1980, during a speech delivered before the Statue of Liberty. Reagan coined the phrase “Make America great again.” He used it as a gift, not a weapon.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“The truth is that highly partisan conservatives and liberals are shockingly clueless about the other side—about their motives and everything else. One 2018 study from the Journal of Politics has revealed that the average Democrat believes that more than 40 percent of Republicans earn over $250,000 per year, when in fact just 2.2 percent do.13 And Republicans believe that nearly 40 percent of Democrats are gay or lesbian, when just over 6 percent are.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Rule 3. Never assume the motives of another person.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“These are practical reasons to avoid them, but there’s the moral reason, too: they’re just plain wrong. We simply should not put up with insults, whether from the other side or our own. Indeed, I’ll take it a step further. When someone on your side insults people on the other side, it is your responsibility to take it personally and stand up for those with whom you disagree.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Rule 2. Don’t attack or insult. Don’t even try to win.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Research shows that insults actually intensify people’s opposition to one’s point of view.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“the more willing we should be to listen and engage—especially if the person with whom we are in conversation will challenge our deeply held—even our most cherished and identity-forming—beliefs. . .”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“There is a special bond among Americans who stand up for one another when they disagree. Have you done that recently? If not, you’re missing out on a great source of joy. If you’re still not convinced, try the following and see how it makes you feel. Defend someone with whom you disagree, simply because he or she has a right to an opinion and the right to be heard. Take note that your heart will be on fire when you do it. That’s because it’s morally right, and your heart knows”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“What I am not proud of is our increasing resistance to competing ideas, right here at home in our politics, in media, and on campuses. So how do we solve it? We need leaders who—while holding their own opinions—tolerate others’, because they recognize that iron sharpens iron ideologically; that diversity in all forms is where our strength and unity are to be found.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Unfortunately, in too many cases today, we are doing something akin to this in universities, and a new generation of American leaders is being taught that a competition of ideas is dangerous and unacceptable; that it is acceptable to shut down the competition if the other side’s ideas make students uncomfortable. This trend doesn’t just defy the principles of excellence; it also flies in the face of one of the great intellectual and moral epiphanies of our time—that human diversity is beneficial per se.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Great CEOs know this. They don’t surround themselves with sycophants and yes-men who tell them whatever they already think is right. In the best of cases, such a practice lowers performance, because there are fewer ideas in the mix; it explains why one study of CEOs finds they tend to see falling performance in the second half of their tenures. They start relying too much on their own judgment as opposed to the ideas of others.25 In the worst cases, it leads to disasters that could be averted with a little critical feedback. The Harvard Business Review has dispensed this simple piece of advice: “Hire people who disagree with you.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“Edmund Burke wrote, “He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“We all want a safer, fairer, more prosperous country. We just disagree on how to achieve that aim. We need a passionate competition of ideas so that each side refines its solutions, becomes more innovative, and therefore the best ideas rise to the top. Shutting down the competition of ideas makes it harder to achieve our common moral goals.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

“The total amount of time spent posting comments online correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. This was especially true for those who relished “trolling,” the anonymous posting of negative and destructive comments. The participants who listed trolling as their favorite activity earned the highest scores on those unsavory psychological measures.”
― Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt