Quotes About Enemies

Men lose their birthrights for a mess of pottage only if they stop using the gifts given them by God for their betterment. By prayer. That is the first and greatest gift. Use the gift of prayer. Ask for strength of mind, and a clear vision. Then sense. Use your sense. … Think long and well. By prayer and good thought you will conquer all enemies.

My life in politics has taught me that the only thing more difficult than fighting against our enemies is taking questions from my friends." Amid knowing chuckles, he promised, "Nonetheless, I shall do my best.

Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies.

A few dozen other people lingered in the arena. Some were in groups, some were pointedly solo and eyeing everyone else as potential enemies. Some looked like ordinary people you'd run into at the mall. Others practically had "Yes, I want to join a fanatical vampire-hating group" stamped across their foreheads.

Behind the moustache there lived an inflamed and savage face with a deeply corrugated brow that indicated a very limited intelligence. 'Life is a puzzlement,' the corrugated brow seemed to be saying, 'and the world is a dangerous place. All men are enemies and small boys are insects that will turn and bite you if you don't get them first and squash them hard.

When a leader comes along who eliminates the tension and dodges the paradox and neatly and precisely explains who the enemies are and gives black-and-white answers to questions, leaving little room for the very real mystery of the divine, it should not surprise us when that person gains a large audience. Especially if that person is really, really confident.

Need I point out that, despite the old saw about uneasy heads and crowns, it is nevertheless safer to be publicly a king than it is to be a pretender in hiding? A king can usually abdicate to save his neck; a pretender may renounce his pretensions but it makes his neck no safer—less so, in fact; it leaves him naked to his enemies.

John Chen was a paranoid. He knew this about himself, just as he knew he had low self-esteem, a poor self-image, and a cornucopia of insecurities. But he also knew an enemy when he saw one. Even paranoids had enemies.

The historian John Keegan explains that America and Britain could champion freedom only because the sea protected them "from the landbound enemies of liberty.

A Prince asked the dying spanish statesman, Does your Excellency forgive all your enemies? I do not have to forgive all my enemies, answered the stateman, I have had them all shot.

JUDGMENT Be wary of friends—they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.

Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies. Voltaire, 1694-1778

This mental habit offers excellent ground for deception, using a strategy that Machiavelli calls "acclimatization"—deliberately creating some pattern to make your enemies believe that your next action will follow true to form. Having lulled them into complacency, you now have room to work against their expectations, break the pattern, and take them by surprise.

The only way to break out of a negative dynamic is to confront it. Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate—these common strategies spell ruin. Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies.

If you are trying to mislead your enemies, it is often better to concoct something ambiguous and hard to read, as opposed to an outright deception—that deception can be uncovered and enemies can turn their discovery to their advantage, especially if you think they are still fooled and act under that belief.

To be emperor of China was to be alone, surrounded by a pack of enemies—it was the least powerful, least secure position in the realm.

Do not be lured by the need to be liked: better to be respected, even feared. Victory over your enemies will bring you a more lasting popularity.

Leaders have always found it useful to have an enemy at their gates in times of trouble, distracting the public from their difficulties. In using your enemies to rally your troops, polarize them as far as possible: they will fight the more fiercely when they feel a little hatred. So exaggerate the differences between you and the enemy—draw the lines clearly.

I'll never use force to try to make my enemies think the way I think, George - partly because I don't believe in it, and partly because it's useless. You can't destroy ideas by force, and you can't hide 'em by silence.

From the very beginning of time itself, enemies have become friends, and friends have become lovers. It is not beyond the realm of possibility, even if history and experiences might be against it. Against us.

There will come a time of fire and night, when enemies rise and empires fall, when the suns themselves begin to die.

It's said that the reason the elves and demons began their war is because of a broken alliance," he said, the world-weary damage to his face making him look wise. "I've always found it to be true—that the best of friends make the bitterest of enemies. Elves and demons, forever fighting. Who is to say that demons weren't the slaves of elves first?

Wait! Conrad said. Did someone... one of my enemies set this fire? Nix turned back with a grin. Unless you'd pissed off some wirring-hungry nutrias, then I'm going with no.

Enemigos mortales... tentaciones prohibidas.