“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.”

“Many people are miserable because they think that occasional destructive feelings necessarily make them terrible persons. But just as Aristotle maintained, “One swallow does not make a spring,” we must understand that one or two or even a dozen unadmirable traits does not make an unadmirable person. Long ago Edmund Burke warned humanity about the danger of false generalization in society; of judging a whole race by a few undesirable members. Today we should likewise become aware of the generalization about our individual personality. A splendid freedom awaits us when we realize that we need not feel like moral lepers or emotional pariahs because we have some aggressive, hostile feeling s towards ourselves and others. When we acknowledge these feelings we no longer have to pretend to be that which we are not. It is enough to be what we are! We discover that rigid pride is actually the supreme foe of inner victory, while flexible humility, the kind of humility that appears when we do not demand the impossible or the angelic of ourselves, is the great ally of psychic peace.”

“We are afraid of what we will do to others, afraid of the rage that lies in wait somewhere deep in our souls. How many human beings go through the world frozen with rage against life! This deeply hidden inner anger may be the product of hurt pride or of real frustration in office, factory, clinic, or home. Whatever may be the cause of our frozen rage (which is the inevitable mother of depression), the great word of hope today is that this rage can be conquered and drained off into creative channels ……What should we do? We should all learn that a certain amount of aggressive energy is normal and certainly manageable in maturity. Most of us can drain off the excess of our angry feelings and destructive impulses in exercise, in competitive games, or in the vigorous battles against the evils of nature and society. We also must realize that no one will punish us for the legitimate expression of self-assertiveness and creative pugnacity as our parents once punished us for our undisciplined temper tantrums. Furthermore, let us remember that we need not totally repress the angry part of our nature. We can always give it an outlet in the safe realm of fantasy. A classic example of such fantasy is given by Max Beerborn, who made a practice of concocting imaginary letters to people he hated. Sometimes he went so far as to actually write the letters and in the very process of releasing his anger it evaporated. As mature men and women we should regard our minds as a true democracy where all kinds of ideas and emotions should be given freedom of speech. If in political life we are willing to grant civil liberties to all sorts of parties and programs, should we not be equally willing to grant civil liberties to our innermost thoughts and drives, confident that the more dangerous of them will be outvoted by the majority within our minds? Do I mean that we should hit out at our enemy whenever the mood strikes us? No, I repeat that I am suggesting quite the reverse—self-control in action based upon (positive coping mechanisms such as) self expression in fantasy.”

“A love of neighbor manifests itself in the tolerance not only of opinions of others but, what is more important, of the essence and uniqueness of others, when we subscribe to that religious philosophy of life that insists that God has made each man and woman an individual sacred personality endowed with a specific temperament, created with differing needs, hungers, dreams. This is a variegated, pluralistic world where no two stars are the same and every snowflake has its own distinctive pattern. God apparently did not want a regimented world of sameness. That is why creation is so manifold. So it is with us human beings. Some are born dynamic and restless; others placid and contemplative…One man’s temperament is full throated with laughter; another’s tinkles with the sad chimes of gentle melancholy. Our physiques are different, and that simple difference oftentimes drives us into conflicting fulfillment of our natures, to action or to thought, to passion or to denial, to conquest or to submission. There is here no fatalism of endowment. We can change and prune and shape the hedges of our being, but we must rebel against the sharp shears being wielded by other hands, cutting off the living branches of our spirits in order to make our personalities adornments for their dwellings.”

“There has been among us, particularly in America, an adolescent competitiveness—a feeling that life is a race in which the victory of one must mean the defeat of the other. No one can measure how much personal unhappiness and inner cowardice have come from this immaturity of our social outlook, this childlike comparison, this absurd rivalry in every area of life. As our democracy becomes more mature, men have a chance of growing up and of realizing that every person is needed and has some contribution to make.”

“Certainly it is true that we need to maintain independence in certain areas of life. We must not be passive but active agents in this strenuous, challenging world. At the same time, we must not make a fetish out of our self-sufficiency. It is normal and wise for us to rely at moments upon the insights, the courage, and the consolation which our human brothers can give us , knowing full well that they in turn sill rely upon our gifts and strength on other critical occasions. Let us not be too proud to admit weakness at moments and to absorb strength from others in our day of need. The ruthless repression of our common human problems and fears can only make us hard or ill; the sharing of these problems with our human comrades alone can save us from the sin of pride, the idolatry of self-sufficiency.”

“Religion must now recognize that our deep antisocial impulses when denied and repressed do not disappear miraculously from reality; the more we treat them like criminals, the more vengeance they take against us. Adults who strive for total repression of their impulses in the realm of imagination wreak havoc either on their bodies or their spirits.The religion of the future should take a page from the notebook of the psychotherapist, encouraging men to tolerate their unacceptable impulses, to sublimate them, and at the same time to discipline themselves to a finer and more generous program of action. It must strengthen mature men and women to realize that everyone has desires and fantasies antisocial in nature. Only when their presence is acknowledged rather than repressed can they be prevented from exercising dominion over us in the realm of action.”