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Quotes about enemies

49 quotes from 40 people

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Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963
- Forgiveness
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Drift-wood. QuoteInvestigator (Aug. 19, 2019)
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
William Blake1757–1827Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 4, plate 91, line 1
- Forgiveness
- Friendship
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
HNHoward W. NewtonOften credited to Isaac Newton
Never explain⁠—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
Elbert Hubbard1856–1915The Motto Book (1907)
- Friendship
I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: “O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!” God granted it.
Voltaire1694–1778Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville (16 May 1767)
- Prayer
Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack (1756)
- Love
You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Letters to Madame Louise Colet (14 June 1853)
- Art
A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy.
Seneca the Younger5 BC–AD 65Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIX: On worldliness and retirement, Line 11.
- Money
A weak invention of the enemy.
Colley Cibber1671–1757Richard III (altered) (1700), Act V, scene 3. Similar thought in William Shakespeare, King Richard III.
Do not trust the horse, Trojans.
Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.
Virgil70–19 BCAeneid (29–19 BC), Book II
It is right to learn even from an enemy.
Ovid43 BC–AD 17Metamorphoses (Transformations), Book IV, 428
There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind.
Homer900–800 BCThe Iliad (750 BC), Iliad, Book XXII, 262–263 (tr. Samuel Butler)In context
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.
Sun Tzu544–496 BCThe Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
- War & Peace
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else⁠—unless it is an enemy.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Essay to Leo Baeck (1953), Ideas and Opinions
- Intelligence