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Quotes about enemies

49 quotes from 40 people

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Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.
J. M. Barrie1860–1937Rectorial Address, St. Andrew’s (3 May 1922)
- Advice
If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:
For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.
The Bible (King James Version)Proverbs 25:21–22 (KJV)In context
- Forgiveness
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
The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer1906–1945The Cost of Discipleship (1937), “The Enemy—the Extraordinary”, p. 147
- God
- Love
“You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!”
Emily Brontë1818–1848Wuthering Heights (1847), Chapter XIn context
- Friendship
Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.
Emily Brontë1818–1848Wuthering Heights (1847), Chapter XVIIIn context
- Morality
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Remark to John Colville (21 June 1941), as quoted in Andrew Nagorski, The Greatest Battle (2007), pp. 150–151
- War & Peace
A weak invention of the enemy.
Colley Cibber1671–1757Richard III (altered) (1700), Act V, scene 3. Similar thought in William Shakespeare, King Richard III.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
CCConstitutional ConventionThe Constitution of the United States (September 17, 1787), Article IIIIn context
- Laws
If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamaborn 1935The Little Book of Buddhism (2000)
- Love
I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man — public opinion.
Clarence Darrow1857–1938The Story of My Life (1932), Ch. 27 “The Loeb-Leopold Tragedy”, p. 232
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else⁠—unless it is an enemy.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Essay to Leo Baeck (1953), Ideas and Opinions
- Intelligence
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
Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack (1756)
- Love
It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive manifestations of their aggressiveness.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 5, as translated by James Strachey and Anna Freud (1961)
- Love