About This Quote
This quote is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment, but its first appearance was in a collection of letters written by the Swiss-German poet Heinrich Heine in 1828. Heine had experienced a dramatic conversion after reading St. Francis's Sermon on Love of Enemies .
St. Francis held that the only meaningful love is for people , not for abstractions like justice, mercy, or God. Heine's words bear the same message: "The world will be an evil place as long as people don't believe in other people."
Source: The Absolute At Large
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