I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
“Wheresoe’er I turn my view,
All is strange, yet nothing new;
Endless labour all along,
Endless labour to be wrong;
Phrase that Time has flung away,
Uncouth words in disarray:
Trickt in antique ruff and bonnet,
Ode and elegy and sonnet.”
Samuel Johnson | “Lines on Thomas Warton’s Poems”