This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Pursue not a victory too far. He hath conquered well that hath made his enemy fly; thou mayest beat him to a desperate resistance, which may ruin thee." - George Herbert
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like cuttlefish squirting out ink." - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though he were your enemy." - George Washington
"The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself." - Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
"The great enemy of knowledge is not error, but inertness. All that we want is discussion; and then we are sure to do well, no matter what our blunders may be. One error conflicts with another, each destroys its opponent, and truth is evolved." - Henry Thomas Buckle
"An impure man is every good man's enemy." - Henry Ward Beecher
"If we are at peace with God and our own conscience, what enemy among men need we fear?" - Hosea Ballou
"Suspicion is far more apt to be wrong than right; oftener unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness." - Hosea Ballou
"Suspicion is far more apt to be wrong than right is oftener unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness." - Hosea Ballou
"There are two things that declare, as with a voice from heaven, that he that fills that eternal throne must be on the 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." - James Bryant Conant
"The greatest friend of truth is time; her greatest enemy is prejudice; and her constant companion is humility." - James Bryant Conant
"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." - James Bryant Conant
"The enemy of conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
"A friend exaggerates a man’s virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes." - Joseph Addison
"Education is leading human souls to what is best, and no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave." - Joseph Addison
"The true happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions; it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows; in short, it feels everything it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive satisfaction from the applauses which she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theaters and assemblies, and has no existence but when she is looked upon." - Joseph Addison
"There is nobody so weak of invention that he cannot make up some little stories to vilify his enemy." - Joseph Addison
"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." - Joseph Heller
"Man is his own worst enemy." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." - Martin Luther
"We overcome in all human affairs the inertia of custom. Custom is a great enemy of progress" - Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
"Death is not the enemy; living in constant fear of it is." - Norman Cousins
"Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence." - Norman B. Podhoretz
"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips." - Oliver Goldsmith
"If you contact God within yourself, you will know that He is in everyone, that He has become the children of all races. Then you cannot be an enemy to anyone. If the whole world could love with that universal love, there would be no more need for men to arm themselves against one another." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
"Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptations we resist." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"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
"Security is mortal’s chiefest enemy." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"One religion is as good as another... The greatest enemy to man is man... It is believable because it is incredible." - Robert Burton
"I need my enemy in my community. He keeps me alert, vital... But beyond what we specifically learn from our enemies, we need them emotionally; our psychic economy cannot get along well without them... Our enemy is as necessary for us as is our friend. Both together are part of authentic community." - Rollo May, fully Rollo Reese May
"Racism in its nationalist phase... has been a politicians plaything... It is a dangerous plaything, a sword which can be turned in any direction to condemn the enemy of the moment." - Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
"Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading. " - Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL
"Solitude, the sly enemy that doth separate a man from well-doing." - Philip Sidney, fully Sir Philip Sidney
"What thou givest after thy death, remember that thou givest it to a stranger, and most times to an enemy; for he that shall marry thy wife will despise thee, thy memory and thine, and shall possess the quiet of thy labors, the fruit which thou hast planted, enjoy thy love, and spend with joy and ease what thou hast spared and gotten with care and travail." - Walter Raleigh, fully Sir Walter Raleigh
"A man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
"No enemy is worse than bad advice." - Sophocles NULL
"Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time." - Sun Tzu or Sunzi
"Who is the bravest hero? He who turns his enemy into a friend." - Midrash or The Midrash NULL
"Who is mighty? He who makes of an enemy a friend." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"If two men claim thy help, and one is thy enemy, help him first." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"Who is mighty? He who turns an enemy into his friend." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"`Tis much safer for thee to reconcile an Enemy than conquer him." - Thomas Fuller