Enemies

Enemies are those who are seen as forcefully adverse or threatening. The term is usually used within the greater context of war, to denote an opposing group as a threat.

Quotes

• His father was no man's friend but his owne, and he (saith the prouerbe) is no man's foe else.
  • Thomas Adams, Diseases of the Soul (1616), p. 53

• The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.
  • Aesop, 'The Eagle and the Arrow', Fables

• He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
  And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
  • Ali, A Hundred Sayings

• There is only one thing more useful in politics than having the right friends, and that is having the right enemies.
  • Anonymous, Economist 375: 8432 (25 June 2005), p. 84

• Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
  • Antisthenes, Greek philosopher, quoted in Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, vi. 12

• I tell thee, be not rash; a golden bridge
  is for a flying enemy.
  • Lord Byron, The Deformed Transformed

• Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
  • Winston Churchill, Speech given at Harrow School, Harrow, England, October 29, 1941. Quoted in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 23 ISBN 1586486381

• A weak Invention of the Enemy.
  • Colley Cibber, Richard III (Altered) (1700), Act V, scene 3

• Never hate your enemies, it clouds you judgement.
  • Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, The Godfather Part III (1990), in a line for Michael Corleone.

• But a companion and a friend shall be turned to an enemy.
  • The Bible, Ecclesiastes 37:2.

• If you wou'd be reveng'd of your enemy, govern your self.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1734)

• Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1739)

• You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy, and I am yours.
  • Benjamin Franklin, letter to William Strahan (July 5, 1775)

• Depend on me; never fear your enemies. Ill warrant We make more noise than they.
  • Henry Fielding, in The Universal Gallant : Or, the Different Husbands, A Comedy (1735)

• A man's enemies have no power to harm him, if he is true to himself and loyal to God.
  • John Bartholomew Gough, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 208

• The wise person finds enemies more useful than the fool does friends.
  • Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, in Aphorism 84. (1647)

• Never fear your, enemies. A bold fight is the best: we should advance, and not retrograde.
  • William Alanson Howard, in Official Proceedings of the National Republican Conventions of 1868, 1872, 1876, and 1880 (1903), p. 250

• It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
  • Sally Kempton, as quoted in Before It's Too Late: Helping Women in Controlling or Abusive Relationships (1995) by Robert J. Ackerman, Ph.D. and Susan E. Pickering, Health Communications, Inc.; and in Feminist Critical Policy Analysis II: A Perspective from Post-Secondary Education (1997) by Catherine Marshall, Falmer Press

• Wee commonly say of a prodigall man that hee is no man's foe but his owne.
  • Bishop John King, Lecture on Jonas, delivered 1594. (Ed. 1618), p. 502

• We pray for our enemies; we seek to persuade those who hate us without cause to live conformably to the goodly precepts of Christ, that they may become partakers with us of the joyful hope of blessings from God, the Lord of all.
  • Justin Martyr, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 207

• The only 'natural enemies' are those who take one’s very nature as an offence.
  • Simon May, English philosopher. The Little Book of Big Thoughts (2005)

• What boots it at one gate to make defence,
  And at another to let in the foe?
  • John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671), line 560

• Keep your friends close, your enemies closer
  • Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Part II (1974). This has been variously attributed to Sun Tzu, Niccolò Machiavelli, or Petrarch, but no published sources predating the film have yet been found.

• Inventé par le caloumnateur ennemy.
  • Invented by the calumniating enemy.
  • François Rabelais, Pantagruel (1532), Book III. 11

• In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
  The enemy more mighty than he seems;
  So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
  Which of a weak and niggardly projection
  Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting
  A little cloth.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act II, scene 4, line 43

• Be advis'd;
  Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
  That it do singe yourself: we may outrun,
  By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
  And lose by over-running.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act I, scene 1, line 139

• I do believe,
  Induced by potent circumstances, that
  You are mine enemy; and make my challenge
  You shall not be my judge.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act II, scene 4, line 76

• That you have many enemies, that know not
  Why they are so, but, like to village-curs,
  Bark when their fellows do.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act II, scene 4, line 158

• O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
  With saints dost bait thy hook!
  • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act II, scene 2, line 180

• I do defy him, and I spit at him;
  Call him a slanderous coward and a villain:
  Which to maintain I would allow him odds,
  And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
  Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act I, scene 1, line 60

• A thing devised by the enemy.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 3, line 306

• It will let in and out the enemy
  With bag and baggage.
  • William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610-11), Act I, scene 2, line 205

• No enemy is worse than bad advice.
  • Sophocles, Electra.

• J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules! Dieu m'a exaucé.
  • I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: "O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!" God granted it.
  • Voltaire in a Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville (16 May 1767)

• A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
  • Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ch. 1. (1891)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 221-22.

• Nos amis, les ennemis.
  • Our friends, the enemy.
  • Pierre-Jean de Béranger, L'Opinion de ces Demoiselles. "Nos amis, nos ennemis." [Our friends, our enemies.] Expression used by the French during the truce after the capture of Sebastopol, referring to the Russians. Recorded in the London Times of that date.

• It is better to decide a difference between enemies than friends, for one of our friends will certainly become an enemy and one of our enemies a friend.
  • Bias

• We love him for the enemies he has made.
  • General Bragg, nominating speech for Grover Cleveland at the Convention of 1884.

• Every man is his own greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner.
  • Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici. Same idea in Clarke, Parœmiologia (1639)

• Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many.
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It? (1858), Book IX, Chapter III. Introduction

• Nihil inimicius quam sibi ipse.
  • Man is his own worst enemy.
  • Cicero, Epistolæ ad Atticum, X. 12a, Section III

• Pereant amici, dum una inimici intercidant.
  • Let our friends perish, provided that our enemies fall at the same time.
  • Cicero, Oratio Pro Rege Deitaro, IX

• He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
  And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Translations, From Omar Khayyam. Attributed to Ali Ben Abu Taleb

• Our enemies will tell the rest with pleasure.
  • Bishop Fleetwood, Preface to Sermons. Ordered burned by House of Commons, May, 1712.

• He has no enemy, you say;
  My friend your boast is poor,
  He who hath mingled in the fray
  Of duty that the brave endure
  Must have made foes. If he has none
  Small is the work that he has done.
  He has hit no traitor on the hip;
  Has cast no cup from perjured lip;
  Has never turned the wrong to right;
  Has been a coward in the fight.
  • Anastasius Grün (Free Translation)

• Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami;
  Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.
  • Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend. Better is it to have a wise enemy.
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, 8, 10

• None but yourself who are your greatest foe.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo, Part II. 3

• My nearest
  And dearest enemy.
  • Thomas Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, Act V, scene 1.

• The world is large when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide;
  But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side.
  • John Boyle O'Reilly, Distance

• His enemies shall lick the dust.
  • Psalms. LXXII. 9

• Pour tromper un rival l'artifice est permis;
  On peut tout employer contre ses ennemis.
  • Artifice is allowable in deceiving a rival, we may employ everything against our enemies.
  • Richelieu, Les Tuileries

• If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
  • Romans, XII. 20

• Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven
  Contain my deadliest enemy and me.
  • Robert Southey, Roderick, the Last of the Goths, Book XXI

• One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
  • Jonathan Swift, Quoted in Letter. (30 May 1710)

• Le corps d'un ennemi mort sent toujours bon.
  • The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet.
  • Attributed to Vespasian and Charles IX. of France.

• Je vais, combattre les ennemis de votre majeste, et je vous laisse au milieu des miens.
  • I have fought your Majesty's enemies, and I now leave you in the midst of my own.
  • Marechal de Villars to Louis XIV, before starting for the Rhine Army. The French Ana. Attributed to Voltaire by Duvemet—Vie de Voltaire.

• Les dons d'un ennemi leur semblainte trop à craindre.
  • To them it seemed that the gifts of an enemy were to be dreaded.
  • Voltaire, Henriade, Chapter II