Great Throughts Treasury

"Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things." - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein

"The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity." - Benjamin Franklin

"The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is fear." -

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -

"Bravery is knowledge of the cowardice in the enemy." -

"Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend." -

"Complacency is the enemy. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be "insatiable in learning" and towards others to be "tireless in teaching."" -

"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you." - African Proverbs

"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you." -

"It is easier to guard against an enemy than against a friend." - Alcmaeon of Crotona NULL

"Religion is the transition from God the Void to God the Enemy, and from God the Enemy to God the Companion." - Alfred North Whitehead

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere." -

"What is man's chief enemy? Each man is his own." - Anacharsis NULL

"Men of sense often learn from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be leaned from a friend, but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties." - Aristophanes NULL

"The cause of the breakdowns of civilizations is not to be found in loss of command over the human environment, as measured by the encroachment of alien human forces... The most that an alien enemy has achieved has been to give an expiring suicide his coup de grace." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee

"Hospitality is to be shown even towards an enemy. The tree doth not withdraw its shade, even from the woodcutter." - Author Unknown NULL

"Today. Mend a quarrel. Search out a friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed. Keep a promise. Find the time. Forego a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate, be kind, be gentle. Laugh a little more. Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Worship your God. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love. Speak it again. Still speak it again. Speak it still once again." - Author Unknown NULL

"Every man's enemy is within himself." - Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda NULL

"Art hath an enemy called ignorance." - Ben Jonson

"In prosperity a friend is not known, and in adversity an enemy is not hidden. When a man is in prosperity even an enemy is friendly, but in his adversity even a friend withdraweth." - Ben Sira

"To be an enemy is a sin; to have one is a temptation." - Benjamin Whichcote

"He who has conquered himself by the Self, he is a friend of himself; but he whose self is unconquered, his self acts as his own enemy like an external foe." - Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

"If a man has anger in his heart, what further enemy need he fear?" - Bhartrihari NULL

"It is always easier to locate an external enemy than grapple with an internal condition." -

"I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself." - Charles Caleb Colton

"An act by which we make one friend and one enemy is a losing game; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Of all the passions, jealously is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is to watch the success of our enemy; its wages to be sure of it." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as an hostage; often as a captive and more often as a child; but knowledge has become of age, and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend." - Charles Caleb Colton

"The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself." - Charles Caleb Colton

"There are two things that declare, as with a voice from heaven, that he that fills that eternal throne must be on side of virtue, and that which he befriends must finally prosper and prevail. The first is that the bad are never completely happy and at ease, although possessed of everything that this world can bestow; and that the good are never completely miserable, although deprived of everything that this world can take away. The second is that we are so framed and constituted that the most vicious cannot but pay a secret though unwilling homage to virtue, inasmuch as the worst men cannot bring themselves thoroughly to esteem a bad man, although he may be their dearest friend, nor can they thoroughly despise a good man, although he may be their bitterest enemy." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other; it warns us with a voice tht even the sagest discredit too long, and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it; he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends." - Charles Caleb Colton

"To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet." - Charles Caleb Colton

"There is a community of hatred. Hatred floods your mind with the ideas of the one you hate. Your thought reflects his, and you act in his spirit. If you wish to be like your enemy, to be wholly his, open your mind and hate him." - Charles Horton Cooley

"Avoid the mean person, but do not make him your personal enemy; get close to the cultivated person, but do not always say yes to him." - Chinese Proverbs

"It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy - from lack of character." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"An enemy is anyone who tells the truth about you." - Elbert Green Hubbard

"The most revolutionary statement in history is “Love thy enemy.”" -

"Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than smallpox." - English Proverbs

"To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him." - Eric Hoffer

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you." - Eric Hoffer

"It is the enemy whom we do not suspect who is the most dangerous." - Fernando De Rojas

"In taking revenge a man is but equal to his enemy, but in passing it over he is his superior." - Francis Bacon

"Nothing is terrible, except fear itself... revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to week it out... Certainly, in taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. This is certain, the man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well." - Francis Bacon

"Men fear death, as children fear the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by frightful tales, so is the other. Groans, convulsions, weeping friends, and the like show death terrible; yet there is no passion so weak but conquers the fear of it, and therefore death is not such a terrible enemy. Revenge triumphs over death, loves slights its, honor aspires to it, dread of shame prefers it, grief flies to it, and fear anticipates it." - Francis Bacon

"The founders of the great world religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Mohammed, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever." - Geoffrey Gorer

"Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons." - George Bernard Shaw

"Forgiveness is the most necessary and proper work of every man; for, though, when I do not a just thing, or a charitable, or a wise, another man may do it for me, yet no man can forgive my enemy but myself." - George Herbert

"Wine is a turn-coat, first a friend, then an enemy." - George Herbert