When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.

This line is widely attributed to Orson Scott Card in connection with his Ender/Bean novels, where empathy toward an enemy becomes a moral and strategic turning point. Card repeatedly explores the idea that truly understanding another person—even an adversary—dissolves simplistic hatred and forces recognition of shared humanity. The sentiment aligns especially closely with the ethical arc in the Ender’s Game/Ender’s Shadow milieu, in which characters learn that “knowing” an opponent entails imaginative identification rather than mere intelligence-gathering. However, the exact first appearance and publication context of this specific wording is difficult to verify reliably without a pinpointed edition and page reference.

Card’s line links empathy with moral perception: hatred thrives on distance, abstraction, and caricature, while genuine knowledge of another person forces recognition of their complexity and humanity. The second sentence complicates the first by suggesting a reciprocal trap—hatred not only follows ignorance but also produces it, blocking the curiosity and openness required to understand someone. The quote therefore frames reconciliation as an epistemic act: to “know” another is not merely to possess facts about them but to apprehend their inner life. It resonates with Card’s recurring interest in compassion as a discipline that can interrupt cycles of violence and dehumanization.