Quotes on Enemy

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers and sisters.

Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.

TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.

I wish you would recollect that Painting and Punctuality mix like Oil and Vinegar, and that Genius and regularity are utter Enemies and must be to the end of time.

When the enemy's envoy's speak in humble terms, but continues his preparations, he will advance. When their language is deceptive but the enemy pretentiously advances, he will retreat. When the envoys speak in apologetic terms, he wishes a respite. When without a previous understanding the enemy asks for a truce, he is plotting. When the enemy sees an advantage but does not advance to seize it, he is fatigued.

Brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out.

Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of any public issue. They think that no harm will come from their neglect. They act as if it is always the business of somebody else to look after this or that. When this selfish notion is entertained by all, the commonwealth slowly begins to decay.

When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.

To cut and slash are two different things. Cutting, whatever form of cutting it is, is decisive, with a resolute spirit. Slashing is nothing more than touching the enemy.

I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people. I know this, I see it printed in the night sky that I, eclectic dissembler of doctrine and psychoanalyst of dogma, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or the trenches , will take my bloodstained weapon, and consumed with fury, slaughter any enemy who falls into my hands.

There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.

Only one enemy is worse than despair: indifference. In every area of human creativity, indifference is the enemy; indifference of evil is worse than evil, because it is also sterile.

He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

The enemy of creativity... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up.

There is nothing more difficult than tactical maneuvering. The difficult consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain. Thus, to take a long and circuitous route after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation.

Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.

Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies' resources, and minimized their own.

Envy is one of the great enemies of active spirituality. It keeps us from loving our neighbours, from functioning with others in community, and from affirming people's unique worth. It also steals contentment from the heart. Is there anything or anyone you are envious of?

The phrase "It's absolutely the same with me, I..." seems to be an approving echo, a way of continuing the other's thought, but that is an illusion: in reality it is a brute revolt against a brutal violence, an effort to free our own ear from bondage and to occupy the enemy's ear by force. Because all of man's life among his kind is nothing other than a battle to seize the ear of others.