Love Quote by Edgar Rice Burroghs

Burroughs, a pulp master best known for jungle-gods and interplanetary swagger, sneaks a colder psychological truth into this line: the emotions that feel “noble” in the moment are rarely the ones that do the most damage. Anger and hate “against one we love” sounds like a contradiction, but it’s the kind families and romances run on. The word “steels” matters: rage gives you a weaponized clarity. You can justify cruelty as passion, cast yourself as injured, and keep acting because anger is active. It’s an engine.

Contempt and pity, by contrast, are social poisons precisely because they don’t feel like a fight. They arrive with a hierarchy baked in. To pity someone you love is to quietly demote them; to feel contempt is to admit you’ve stopped taking them seriously. Those emotions don’t “steel” the heart; they hollow it out. Burroughs nails the aftermath: silence and shame. Not dramatic confrontation, not catharsis, but the queasy recognition that you’ve crossed into something uglier than hatred - a refusal to see the other person as an equal.

The subtext is almost tactical: if you’re trying to survive a relationship rupture, anger can be metabolized into boundaries and change. Contempt can’t. It’s the emotion you don’t post about because it indicts you, too. Coming from a writer who traded in high-adventure moral binaries, the line lands as an adult aside: the real villain isn’t conflict; it’s the moment you stop believing the other person deserves your voice.