Self-hatred seems to me an evil thing in itself rather than an antidote to evil. If we practice self-hatred, then the sacrifice we make of ourselves and our lives is not sacred, for it is then a gift of something we hate rather than of something that we have nurtured and loved.

You rebel against the tribal and look for the individual, for your own voice as against the stereotypical voice of the tribe or the tribe's stereotype of itself. You have to establish yourself against your predecessor, and doing so can well involve what they like to call self-hatred. I happen to think that — all those protestations notwithstanding — your self hatred was real and a positive force in its very destructiveness. Since to build something new often requires that something else be destroyed, self-hatred is valuable for a young person. What should he or she have instead — self-approval, self-satisfaction, self-praise? It's not so bad to hate the norms that keep a society from moving on, especially when the norms are dictated by fear as much as by anything else and especially when that fear is of the enemy forces of the overwhelming majority. But you seem now to be so strongly motivated by a need for reconciliation with the tribe that you aren't even willing to acknowledge how disapproving of its platitudinous demands you were back then, however ineluctably Jewish you may also have felt. The prodigal son who once upset the tribal balance — and perhaps even invigorated the tribe's health — may well, in his old age, have a sentimental urge to go back home, but isn't this a bit premature in you, aren't you really too young to have it so fully developed?

Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.

When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.

It's hard to discover that you're hated.

Self-loathing was a difficult thing for those who had none of their own to understand. It had its own seasons. It could trick you into thinking it had lifted, only to come cycling around again. You attacked yourself in the same ways you always had. You flung the same accusations. Perhaps you could no more rid yourself of self-loathing than you could rid the world of winter. What was certain was that, like winter, in its wake it left you bare.

Here’s the punch line: You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. Once the mental grooves of habit have been carved into your brain, they are nearly impossible to remove entirely — even if they go unused for quite a while. And that means that simply resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy. It is hard to maintain a Zen attitude in a life filled with interruptions. It takes too much energy. In the short-run, you can choose to overpower temptation. In the long-run, we become a product of the environment that we live in. To put it bluntly, I have never seen someone consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment.

Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. Please be careful, Mr.Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off.

Like, love; but do not make the person an indispensable part of your habits, routines, and daily affairs. It can be relatively easy to forget an individual, but breaking a habit is exceedingly difficult.

Hatred is self-punishment.

It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave.

Who taught you to hate yourself?

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

Hatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.