quotations about enemies
If you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The only good enemy is a dead enemy.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
The Killing Dance
An adversary may spur us on to great efforts to excel; for there is pain in surpassing those who love us, however it be our duty to prevail; but to exceed any one who is hostile to us will try the heart with but a general compassion, and only a tender and charitable heart--which all, indeed, ought to be.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
People no longer need enemies--in this millennium their great dream is to become victims. Only their psychopathies can set them free.
J. G. BALLARD
Super-Cannes
He makes no friends who never made a foe.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir
It is weakness which makes us hate an enemy and seek revenge, and it is idleness that pacifies us and causes us to neglect it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Friends may come and go
but enemies accumulate.
JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
In Too Deep
We must give even an enemy what credit he deserves. If thus we do, then whether we blame or excuse, it will be clear that we are looking at the wrong, not blinded by hatred of the person. This will gain credit for what we say. To this kind of high and self-contained justice, enemies may help us more directly than friends, perhaps, because it is so easy to commend the friend for love's sake, but a harder and higher virtue to excuse the enemy for justice's sake.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
We have two lessons to teach an enemy who despises us--to value himself less highly, and us more worthily.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Mortal enemies are like beautiful kitchens: Some households have them, and when they belong to famous people, we're immediately more interested in them. Which makes public feuds between mortal enemies akin to fancy custom appliances and gleaming copper pots as far as the eye can see.
ALEX ABAD-SANTOS
"Kanye West and Taylor Swift's latest fight explained", Vox, February 12, 2016
The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Fellowship of the Ring
An enemy is like a darkroom designed to develop you as a portrait for the next season of your life.
J. ELWOOD GATLIN, SR.
260 Gems of Wisdom, 624 Daily Confessions
Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
There's ways you can trust an enemy you can't always trust a friend. An enemy's never going to betray your trust.
DANIEL ABRAHAM
The Dragon's Path
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
ANONYMOUS
Your enemy is any power, spirit, force and personality, that does not want you to fulfil your destiny.
D. K. OLUKOYA
When the Enemy Hides
I hate admitting that my enemies have a point.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
The Satanic Verses
Enemies were teachers in disguise.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
Enemies make us watchful of ourselves and induce self-examination; for we must argue thus: our foe hates us with reason or without reason; if without reason, then he not really hates us, but some other sort of person for whom he mistakes us; but if with reason, then it is plain we should improve, and remove the reason.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays