Tao Te Ching
Enemy
Like many conclusions under the rubric of "if it's not a paradox, it's not the truth," pointing out benefits of having an enemy both goes against conventional opinion as well as religious doctrine. Potential harm, however, mainly arises from aggressively acting against enemies rather than from the state of only recognizing them. Without rivals, competitors, those who challenge our opinions and assumptions, perhaps little progress comes about. Without protest, attention dissipates. Without confrontation, we easily fall asleep in a stupor of cliché. Without competition, not much changes. Taken from this point of view, instead of hating and letting enemies arouse the poison of hatred in our hearts, we can learn to appreciate those who contend against us, critique our views, and criticize our actions. We can find there inspiration, motivation, and meaningfulness.
Quotes (84)
“And may the gods accomplish your desire: a home, a husband, and harmonious converse with him – the best thing in the world being a strong house held in serenity where man and wife agree. Woe to their enemies, joy to their friends!”
“Man’s duty is three-fold: To make him who is an enemy a friend, to make him who is wicked righteous; and to make him who is ignorant learned.”
“Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant or an enemy, must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves.”
“Your own worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your thoughts if left unguarded; but, if guarded, nothing or no one could help you as much—not even your mother or father.”
“Protecting ourselves against defeat is in our own hands; the opportunity of defeating the enemy is in theirs.”
“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
“There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself - an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.”
“Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.”
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
“The wise become their own best friend and appreciate privacy while the man of no virtue or ability—afraid of solitude—turns into his own worst enemy”
“When the ruler view his ministers as his hands and feet, they regard him as their heart and soul. When he views them as dirt and weeds, they regard him as an enemy and a thief.”
“Clarity is the enemy of self-deception and of the larger deception known as ideology.”
“There are people who owe more to bitter enemies than to apparently pleasant friends: the former often speak the truth, the latter never.”
“Those desiring to escape suffering hasten right toward it. With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy.”
“Armed with the sword of undying awareness, I conquer my enemies, the demons of the 3 realms.”
“With the realization that appearance is mind,
There is no difference between friends and enemies.”
“Except for the enemies of the Buddha's doctrine and those who bring harm to sentient beings, I, Gesar, have no enemies.”
“Those who meet resistance with agreement, toil with relaxation pride with humility, and action with stillness have no enemy. Wherever they go, the conquer.”
“No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.”
“The chief characteristic of highminded integrity is speaking well of an enemy.”
“Make use of your enemies… The wise will turn ill will into a mirror more faithful than that of kindness”
“Flattery is more dangerous than hatred... A wise person gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
“People have no enemies, none at all right from the start. You create them all yourself fighting over right and wrong.”
“It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far more than the enemy.”
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
“It's useless to complain about your enemies; if your whole being is a standing reproach to them, they can never become your friends.”
“Democracy restores to man a consciousness of his value, teaches him by the removal of authority and oppression to listen to the dictates of reason, gives him confidence to treat all other men as his fellow human beings, and induces him to regard them no loner as enemies against whom to be upon his guard, but as brethren whom it comes him to assist.”
“Because you have realized that everything has one taste in being empty, the delusion of fixating on enemy and friend collapses and there is no thought of dualistic fixation on self and other.”
“With compassion, even enemies turn into friends. Without compassion, even friends turn into enemies.”
“This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his deathbed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be graven on his tombstone, 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.'”
“If there be no enemy there's no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.”
“Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends”
“I would as soon be descended from a baboon... as from a savage who delights in torturing his enemies... treats his wives like slaves... and is haunted by the grossest superstitions”
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
“This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings; they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin.”
“but he has his enemies too; there are always people who can't forgive an able man for differing from them.”
“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.”
“The great enemy of knowledge is not error… One error conflicts with another, each destroys its opponent, and truth is evolved.”
“The two forces, the two worst enemies of civil freedom are absolute monarchy and revolution.”
“When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.”
“The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their own borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need o being saved.”
“This is a busy world, and no one has time to sit right down and hate you. The only enemies we have are those we conjure up ourselves. The idea that we have enemies is only egotism gone to seed.”
“I would rather have this life of combat than moral calm and mournful stupor. God give me struggle, enemies, howling crowds, all the combat of which I am capable.”
“I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”
“It's all very well to tell us to forgive our enemies; our enemies can never hurt us very much. But oh, what about forgiving our friends?”
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
“I stop drinking and take cod liver oil to lengthen my life... principally because of those who are my enemies—so that some regret may remain in their too perfect world... to make the so-called gentlemen uncomfortable for a few more days.”
“You cannot struggle with men, not you, because at the very moment you are fighting, you keep thinking that your enemy might be right, and no matter what he does to you after that, you forgive him.”
“Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.”
“Such men as this puppet are our worst and our true enemies, for they have betrayed themselves and us in them. The enemy from outside is a disease but the puppets are our own weakness”
“As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”
“But prejudice is the greatest enemy of objective observation and creative thought, while an awareness of yet unexplored possibilities will open our minds to new perspectives which reveal new facts.”
“a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.”
“Love thine enemies because they are the instruments of your destiny.”
“The crowd is like a besieged city and, as in many sieges, it has enemies before its walls and enemies within them.”
“There can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.”
“It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral”
“Sentient beings, self and others, enemies and dear ones-all are made by thoughts. It is like seeing a rope and mistaking it for a snake… We have been deluded by our thoughts.”
“Of all the non-Western religions, Islam stands closest to the west—closest geographically, and also closest ideologically; for religiously it stands in the Abrahamic family of religions while philosophically it builds on the Greeks. Yet Islam is the most difficult religion for the West to understand... Common borders have given rise to border disputes... for a good part of the last 1400 years, Islam and Europe have been at war, and people seldom have a fair picture of their enemies.”
“How can you have a war on terrorism while war itself is terrorism! War itself is the enemy of the human race.”
“A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy, a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.”
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“I read this poem as saying that if you can take life as it comes, it doesn’t come at you as your enemy.”
“trying constantly to attain something higher and greater... completely drunk on competitiveness... everyone is regarded as the enemy... your experiences are so strong that they overpower you, hypnotize you.”
“We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.”
“when we try to get rid of something, we're really just reinforcing hope and fear. If we treat some condition, feeling, sensation, or any other type of experience as an enemy, we only make it stronger.”
“military globalization: War spreads ideas, technologies, and people far more quickly than commerce does... People care far more about their enemies than about their trade partners. For every American film about Taiwan, there are probably fifty about Vietnam.”
“Most people don't view themselves as one-dimensional creatures obsessed solely with power. Why, then, hold such a view about everyone else?”
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