Enemy Quotes

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
― Abraham Lincoln

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
― Sun Tzu

“It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.”
― Mark Twain

“Save your skin from the corrosive acids from the mouths of toxic people. Someone who just helped you to speak evil about another person can later help another person to speak evil about you.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunnéd it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.”
― William Blake, Songs of Experience

“You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon

“An enemy, Ender Wiggin," whispered the old man. "I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.”
― Tim Fargo

“Protect your good image from the eyes of negative viewers, who may look at your good appearance with an ugly fiendish eye, and ruin your positive qualities with their chemical infested tongues.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“The deeper I go into myself the more I realize that I am my own enemy.”
― Floriano Martins

“Jacks no longer felt like her enemy, he felt like her home.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us?

Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is—not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness.

We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“It doesn't take long to persuade each other to stop seeing a person as a person. And when enough people are quiet for long enough, a handful of voices can give the impression that everyone is screaming.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“If you claim to be a real friend then be real in your soul. If you claim to be fake then be an enemy instead.”
― Santosh Kalwar

“A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy
as the shadow that he himself casts.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Together, we form a necessary paradox; not a senseless contradiction.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“If you're confused about what to do,
it's a sign that your enemy is winning.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“Tyrion let the eunuch help him mount. "Lord Varys," he said from the saddle, "sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King's Landing and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy."

"How odd. I think quite the same of you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“To have a traitor for an ally is to have an enemy in waiting”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart

“Some people talk about other people’s failures with so much pleasure that you would swear they are talking about their own successes.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“My father wrote: "Always question where your loyalties lie. The people you trust will expect it, your greatest enemies will desire it, and those you treasure the most, will, without fail, abuse it.”
― Emily Thorne

“Our best enemy is the one who challenges us, and so doing, teaches us to set out to discover our potentials, while our worst friend is the one who is numbing us and lulling us into complacency, always being consenting or acquiescent. ("Being my best friend.")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“You're the enemy. I don't want to sympathize with you. So... So don't... Don't cry like that in front of me! Damn it...”
― Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Band 11