A collection of the best enemy quotes to help you figure out the best way to understand and handle your enemies.
In life, regardless of what you do or how much you try to avoid it, there will always be people who will disagree with you, hate you, judge you, and bring you down.
Dealing with enemies can be difficult and not to mention mentally and emotionally draining.
We have gathered a collection of enemy quotes below to help you try to look at things from a different perspective, learn how to understand your enemies, and hopefully inspire you to make the right decision on how to deal with them.
76 Enemy Quotes and Sayings
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
— Sun Tzu
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
— Oscar Wilde
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.
— Oscar Wilde
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.
— Mahatma Gandhi
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
— J. K. Rowling
Never explain―your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
— Elbert Hubbard
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
— Winston Churchill
It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
— Mahatma Gandhi
That’s your best friend and your worst enemy – your own brain.
— Fred Durst
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
— G.K. Chesterton
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
— Baltasar Gracian
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
— John F. Kennedy
Thought-provoking enemy quotes
An honorable man is fair even to his enemies; a dishonorable man is unfair even to his friends!
― Mehmet Murat ildan
Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.
— Mario Puzo
The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
— Sun Tzu
The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.
― Lalah Delia
The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
The life of the enemy. Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy’s staying alive.
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
It is more important to outhink your enemy, than to outfight him
— Sun Tzu
To be successful you need friends and to be very successful you need enemies.
— Sidney Sheldon
The enemy wants to steal our peace and keep us stirred up, anxious, fearful, upset, and always in a stance of waiting for something terrible to happen at any minute.
— Stormie Omartian
A man with no enemies is a man with no character.
― Paul Newman
When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
— Winston Churchill
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
― Abraham Lincoln
Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.
— Antisthenes
Enemies are either defeated, befriended or bypassed.
― Stewart Stafford
Enemies are an indication of character.
— Mary Roberts Rinehart
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Wise enemy quotes
You will meet people in life who will just dislike you for no reason, not because there is anything wrong with you but because everything is going right for you. Until they master their own peace, they will always try to destroy yours.
— Keysha Jade
Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.
— Tim Fargo
You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists.
— Michael T. Flynn
Those who pray for your downfall are concentrating negative thoughts towards you, without taking cognisance of the slippery ground in which they are standing, which could lead to their downfall.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.
— Mao Zedong
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
— William Hazlitt
Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.
— Criss Jami
Bitter people are not interested in what you say, but what you hide.
— Shannon L. Alder
A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.
— Bryant H. McGill
It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
— Siddhārtha Gautama
Never Hate your enemies, they teach you lessons.
— Bharath Mamidoju
It’s not about going around trying to stir up trouble. As long as you’re honest and you articulate what you believe to be true, somebody somewhere will become your enemy whether you like it or not.
— Criss Jami
Enemies are people who’s story you haven’t heard, or who’s face you haven’t seen.
— Irene Butter
The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.
— Laurell K. Hamilton
Friends may come and go but enemies accumulate.
— Jayne Ann Krentz
Quotes about Enemies
It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
— Sally Kempton
Be loyal to those who are loyal to you. And respect everyone, even your enemies and competition.
— John Cena
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
— Woodrow Wilson
If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
— Desmond Tutu
Enemies are so stimulating.
— Katharine Hepburn
If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
— Aesop
You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.
— Rula Ghani
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
— Nelson Mandela
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
— Aristotle
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
— Mario Puzo
You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.
— Yitzhak Rabin
If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.
— Sun Tzu
Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.
— Robert Kennedy
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
— Eric Hoffer
More enemy quotes and sayings
Bear patiently with a rival.
— Ovid
Seeing the enemy as human. A general’s ultimate nightmare.
― Sabaa Tahir
Staying silent is like a slowgrowing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for—YOU.
— Shannon L. Alder
The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.
— Joseph Heller
Our enemies are our outward consciences.
— Shakespeare
Your enemies cannot make you hate them, define you, or make you obsessively think about them, only you can do that.
— Carmine Savastano
Love your enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
― Benjamin Franklin
Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time let them feel, the steadiness of your resentment.
— Lord Chesterfield
People who are two-faced, usually forget which mask they are wearing at some point in their life.
― Anthony T.Hincks
I bring out the worst in my enemies and that’s how I get them to defeat themselves.
— Roy M. Cohn
If video games have taught me anything, it’s that if you encounter enemies then you’re going the right way.
― Ali G.
As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
— Thomas Jefferson
Don’t fight with your enemy’s brains, fight with his heart.
— Bangambiki Habyarimana
When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend
— William Blake
It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.
— Thomas Paine
Enemies can’t break your spirit, only friends can.
— Arundhati Roy