Enemy Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

John F. Kennedy

Mao Zedong

Nelson Mandela

Sun Tzu

E. B. White

Ulysses S. Grant

George F. Kennan

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

John F. Kennedy

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

John F. Kennedy

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce.

There is love of course. And then there's life, its enemy.

Meanwhile, my residence within the Federal lines, and my acquaintance with so many of the officers, the origin of which I have already mentioned, enabled me to gain much important information as to the position and designs of the enemy.

A military man can scarcely pride himself on having "smitten a sleeping enemy"; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.

Isoroku Yamamoto

One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an enemy - whether he knows it or not.

Orlando Aloysius Battista

I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he never shall receive it. To the other points whereof I am accused, I freely confess them all. As Governor of my country I have been an enemy to its enemies; I have slain the English; I have mortally opposed the English King; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own. If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin; but it is not of Edward of England I shall ask pardon.

William Wallace

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.

The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy.

Corrie ten Boom

The Jews are the enemy of National Socialism. From the time of their emancipation their methods were directed to the annihilation of the folkish and moral worth of the German people and to replace a national and responsible ideology with international nihilism. It was really they who stabbed the Army in the back which broke the resistance of the Germans in the First World War. The Jews are the enemy with whom no armistice or peace can be made. We will smite the Jews where we meet them and whoever goes along with them must take the consequences.

Arthur Seyss-Inquart

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor; the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.

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.

Orson Scott Card

I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy.

Stonewall Jackson

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on.

Ulysses S. Grant

My greatest enemy is reality. I have fought it successfully for thirty years.

Margaret Caroline Anderson

The science of booby-trapping has taken a good deal of the fun out of following hot on the enemy's heels.

As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life, and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived — a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life & property & that of my family, in my own opinion, is right & justifiable in the sight of God.
An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man's property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything that is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.

As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government … too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.