Enemies Friends Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Enemies Friends. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech.
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William Shakespeare (All's Well That Ends Well)
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It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
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In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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The Paradoxical Commandments People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
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Kent M. Keith (The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council)
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Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies.
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Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
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Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
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Abraham Lincoln
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The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
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Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
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It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
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William Blake
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I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.
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Oscar Wilde
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Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People)
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Ally." Peeta says the words slowly, tasting it. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I'll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out. The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up.
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Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
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My friends call me Wrath,โ€ says Raffe. โ€œMy enemies call me Please Have Mercy. Whatโ€™s your name, soldier boy?
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Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
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Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
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Stephen King
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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.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
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Baltasar Graciรกn (The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle)
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As for Celaena," he said again, "you do not have the right to wish she were not what she is. The only thing you have a right to do is decide whether you are her enemy or her friend.
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Sarah J. Maas (Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3))
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He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
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Oscar Wilde
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The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
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Aristotle
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Never explainโ€•your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
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Elbert Hubbard
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A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults
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Mario Puzo (The Godfather)
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Help someone, you earn a friend. Help someone too much, you make an enemy.
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Erol Ozan
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It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.
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Mark Twain
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We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
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Abraham Lincoln (Great Speeches / Abraham Lincoln: with Historical Notes by John Grafton)
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Your Worst Enemy Could Be Your Best Friend && Your Best Friend Your Worst Enemy
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Bob Marley
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There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.
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Homer (The Odyssey)
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Jace perched on the windowsill and looked down at him. "You really don't get this bodyguard thing, do you?" "I didn't even think you liked me all that much," said Simon. "Is this one of those keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer things?" "I thought it was keep your friends close so you have someone to drive the car when you sneak over to your enemy's house a night and throw up in his mailbox." "I'm pretty sure that's not it
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Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
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Always sleep with one eye open. Never take anything for granted. Your best friends might just be your enemies.
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Sara Shepard (The Lying Game (The Lying Game, #1))
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Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until weโ€™ve loved them, left them, or fought them.
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Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
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Friends are nothing but a known enemy
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Kurt Cobain
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People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.
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David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
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The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
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He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
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ุนู„ูŠ ุจู† ุฃุจูŠ ุทุงู„ุจ
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Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.
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Salman Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet)
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Ginny, listen...I can't be involved with you anymore. We've got to stop seeing each other. We can't be together." "It's for some stupid noble reason isn't it?" "It's been like...like something out of someone else's life these last few weeks with you. But I can't...we can't...I've got to do things alone now. Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He's already used you as bait once, and that was just because you were my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll be in if we keep this up. He'll know, he'll find out. He'll try and get me through you." "What if I don't care?" "I care. How do you think I'd feel if this was your funeral...and it was my fault...
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
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To be successful you need friends and to be very successful you need enemies.
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Sidney Sheldon (The Other Side of Midnight (Midnight #1))
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A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.
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Aesop (Aesopโ€™s Fables)
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Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.
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Tim Fargo
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One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
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Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
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Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.
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Criss Jami (Healology)
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Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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People say, 'I'm going to sleep now,' as if it were nothing. But it's really a bizarre activity. 'For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I'm going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.' If you didn't know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you'd seen. They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the 'mind adventures' got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren't unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.' So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.
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George Carlin (Brain Droppings)
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Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they canโ€™t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes theyโ€™ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. Thatโ€™s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. Thereโ€™s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. (from "Loving Your Enemies")
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Martin Luther King Jr. (A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.)
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I have no enemies. But my friends don't like me.
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Philip Larkin
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Is this one of those keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer things?" "I though it was keep your friends close so you have someone to drive the car when you sneak over to your enemy's house at night and throw up in his mailbox.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
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If you wonโ€™t be my friend, youโ€™ll regret being my enemy.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga. It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out. But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy. We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.
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Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
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I can be a good friend, or a bad enemy.
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Richelle Mead (Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, #4))
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Noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.
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Terry Pratchett (Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1))
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Often you don't know whether a woman is friend, enemy or lover until it is too late. Sometimes, she is all three.
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Robert Jordan (Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, #6))
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Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.
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Voltaire
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Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemyโ€”love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.
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Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray)
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You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. Youโ€™ve hit no traitor on the hip. Youโ€™ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. Youโ€™ve never turned the wrong to right. Youโ€™ve been a coward in the fight.
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Charles Mackay
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Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.
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Terry Pratchett (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
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Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. Like all of life's important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives.
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Fred Rogers
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Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate โ€” and quickly.
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Robert A. Heinlein
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One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While itโ€™s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.
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Edward Abbey
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Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
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Mario Puzo
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The Seven Commandments: Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. No animal shall wear clothes. No animal shall sleep in a bed. No animal shall drink alcohol. No animal shall kill any other animal. All animals are equal.
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George Orwell (Animal Farm)
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Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive; let them understand I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends. To such a life glory belongs.
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Euripides (Medea and Other Plays)
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No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.
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Alfred Tennyson
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Don't explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you
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Paulo Coelho
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Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies.
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Orson Scott Card (Hart's Hope)
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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?
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Willa Cather (My Mortal Enemy)
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Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
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Benjamin Franklin
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Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?
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John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas)
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Fear is like a fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you. It can heat your house.If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. Fear is your friend and your worst enemy.
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Sui Ishida (ๆฑไบฌๅ–ฐ็จฎใƒˆใƒผใ‚ญใƒงใƒผใ‚ฐใƒผใƒซ:re 1 [Tokyo Guru:re 1] (Tokyo Ghoul:re, #1))
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It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough.
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Joe Abercrombie (Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3))
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I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends!
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Charlotte Brontรซ (The Letters of Charlotte Brontรซ)
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Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.
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Fredrik Backman (Beartown (Beartown, #1))
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Your enemy's enemy is your friend.
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Becca Fitzpatrick (Silence (Hush, Hush, #3))
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If you can't make yourself understood by your friends, you'll be in trouble when your enemies come for you.
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Hunter S. Thompson
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If you claim to be a real friend then be real in your soul. If you claim to be fake then be an enemy instead.
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Santosh Kalwar
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do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.
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Marcus Tullius Cicero
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I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunnรฉd it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole, When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.
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William Blake (Songs of Experience)
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But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.
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Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy (A Bridge of Leaves, #1))
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Be wary of friendsโ€”they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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Accept โ€” then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
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Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
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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 others, charity.
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Benjamin Franklin
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I never claimed to be Prince Charming, and my love isnโ€™t a fairy tale type of love. Iโ€™m a fucked-up person with fucked-up morals. I wonโ€™t write you poems or serenade you beneath the moonlight. But you are the only woman I have eyes for. Your enemies are my enemies, your friends are my friends, and if you wanted, I would burn down the world for you.
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Ana Huang (Twisted Love (Twisted, #1))
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Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community)
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He asked, 'Croesus, who told you to attack my land and meet me as an enemy instead of a friend?' The King replied, 'It was caused by your good fate and my bad fate. It was the fault of the Greek gods, who with their arrogance, encouraged me to march onto your lands. Nobody is mad enough to choose war whilst there is peace. During times of peace, the sons bury their fathers, but in war it is the fathers who send their sons to the grave.
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Herodotus (The Histories)
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Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen (Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life)
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The god of wine looked around at the assembled crowd. โ€œMiss me?โ€ The satyrs fell over themselves nodding and bowing. โ€œOh, yes, very much, sire!โ€ โ€œWell, I did not miss this place!โ€ Dionysus snapped. โ€œI bear bad news, my friends. Evil news. The minor gods are changing sides. Morpheus has gone over to the enemy. Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more.โ€ Thunder rumbled in the distance. โ€œStrike that,โ€ Dionysus said. โ€œEven Zeus doesnโ€™t know.
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Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4))
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This year, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.
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Howard W. Hunter
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People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
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Kent M. Keith
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When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them. It's the first time since they announced the Quarter Quell that he's offered me any sort of affection. He's been more like a very demanding trainer, always pushing, always insisting Haymitch and I run faster, eat more, know our enemy better. Lovers? Forget about that. He abandoned any pretense of even being my friend. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something. Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go. And why should I?
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Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
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I used to love the ocean. Everything about her. Her coral reefs, her white caps, her roaring waves, the rocks they lap, her pirate legends and mermaid tails, Treasures lost and treasures held... And ALL Of her fish In the sea. Yes, I used to love the ocean, Everything about her. The way she would sing me to sleep as I lay in my bed then wake me with a force That I soon came to dread. Her fables, her lies, her misleading eyes, I'd drain her dry If I cared enough to. I used to love the ocean, Everything about her. Her coral reefs, her white caps, her roaring waves, the rocks they lap, her pirate legends and mermaid tails, treasures lost and treasures held. And ALL Of her fish In the sea. Well, if you've ever tried navigating your sailboat through her stormy seas, you would realize that her white caps are your enemies. If you've ever tried swimming ashore when your leg gets a cramp and you just had a huge meal of In-n-Out burgers that's weighing you down, and her roaring waves are knocking the wind out of you, filling your lungs with water as you flail your arms, trying to get someone's attention, but your friends just wave back at you? And if you've ever grown up with dreams in your head about life, and how one of these days you would pirate your own ship and have your own crew and that all of the mermaids would love only you? Well, you would realize... Like I eventually realized... That all the good things about her? All the beautiful? It's not real. It's fake. So you keep your ocean, I'll take the Lake.
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Colleen Hoover
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I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the worldโ€™s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in blurry, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as a starfish loves a coral reef and as a kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. i will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and as an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as the taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.
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Lemony Snicket
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Iโ€™ve fought in three campaigns,โ€ he began. โ€œIn seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. Iโ€™ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. Iโ€™ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. Iโ€™ve known little else. Iโ€™ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And thatโ€™s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper. โ€œIโ€™ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. Iโ€™ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. Iโ€™ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. Iโ€™ve run away myself more than once. Iโ€™ve pissed myself with fear. Iโ€™ve begged for my life. Iโ€™ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. Iโ€™ve no doubt the world would be a better place if Iโ€™d been killed years ago, but I havenโ€™t been, and I donโ€™t know why.โ€ He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. โ€œThere are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and thereโ€™s a lot of โ€™em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. Iโ€™ve earned it. Iโ€™ve deserved it. Iโ€™ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.
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Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1))
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When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole? For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole.
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Nikola Tesla
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She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude.--Gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be defined.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Kelsier exhaled in exasperation. โ€œElend Venture? You risked your lifeโ€”risked the plan, and our livesโ€”for that fool of a boy?โ€ Vin looked up, glaring at him. โ€œYes.โ€ โ€œWhat is wrong with you, girl?โ€ Kelsier asked. โ€œElend Venture isnโ€™t worth this.โ€ She stood angrily, Sazed backing away, the cloak falling the ๏ฌ‚oor. โ€œHeโ€™s a good man!โ€ โ€œHeโ€™s a nobleman!โ€ โ€œSo are you!โ€ Vin snapped. She waved a frustrated arm toward the kitchen and the crew. โ€œWhat do you think this is, Kelsier? The life of a skaa? What do any of you know about skaa? Aristocratic suits, stalking your enemies in the night, full meals and nightcaps around the table with your friends? Thatโ€™s not the life of a skaa!โ€ She took a step forward, glaring at Kelsier. He blinked in surprise at the outburst. โ€œWhat do you know about them, Kelsier?โ€ she asked. โ€œWhenโ€™s the last time you slept in an alley, shivering in the cold rain, listening to the beggar next to you cough with a sickness you knew would kill him? Whenโ€™s the last time you had to lay awake at night, terri๏ฌed that one of the men in your crew would try to rape you? Have you ever knelt, starving, wishing you had the courage to knife the crewmember beside you just so you could take his crust of bread? Have you ever cowered before your brother as he beat you, all the time feeling thankful because at least you had someone who paid attention to you?โ€ She fell silent, puf๏ฌng slightly, the crewmembers staring at her. โ€œDonโ€™t talk to me about noblemen,โ€ Vin said. โ€œAnd donโ€™t say things about people you donโ€™t know. Youโ€™re no skaaโ€” youโ€™re just noblemen without titles.โ€ She turned, stalking from the room. Kelsier watched her go, shocked, hearing her footsteps on the stairs. He stood, dumbfounded, feeling a surprising ๏ฌ‚ush of ashamed guilt. And, for once, found himself without anything to say.
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Brandon Sanderson (The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1))
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--and then you're in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it's the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it's you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool- and Substance-crusted T-shirt you've both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest's center and centerless eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you've been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It's your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It's gotten you into is undeniable and you still can't stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can't stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around.
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David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
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Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us? Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask isโ€”not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.
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Robert G. Ingersoll (Some Mistakes of Moses)
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How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?โ€œ Winston thought. โ€œBy making him sufferโ€, he said. โ€œExactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy โ€“ everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.
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George Orwell (1984)
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Sir, people never wanted me to make it to squire. They won't like it any better if I become a knight. I doubt I'll ever get to command a force larger than, well, just me.' Raoul shook his head. 'You're wrong.' As she started to protest, he raised a hand. 'Hear me out. I have some idea of what you've had to bear to get this far, and it won't get easier. But there are larger issues than your fitness for knighthood, issues that involve lives and livelihoods. Attend,' he said, so much like Yayin, one of her Mithran teachers, that Kel had to smile. 'At our level, there are four kids of warrior,' he told Kel. He raised a fist and held up one large finger. 'Heroes, like Alanna the Lioness. Warriors who find dark places and fight in them alone. This is wonderful, but we live in the real world. There aren't many places without any hope or light.' He raised a second finger. 'We have knights- plain, everyday knights, like your brothers. They patrol their borders and protect their tenants, or they go into troubled areas at the king's command and sort them out. They fight in battles, usually against other knights. A hero will work like an everyday knight for a time- it's expected. And most knights must be clever enough to manage alone.' Kel nodded. 'We have soldiers,' Raoul continued, raising a third finger. 'Those warriors, including knights, who can manage so long as they're told what to do. These are more common, thank Mithros, and you'll find them in charge of companies in the army, under the eye of a general. Without people who can take orders, we'd be in real trouble. 'Commanders.' He raised his little finger. 'Good ones, people with a knack for it, like, say, the queen, or Buri, or young Dom, they're as rare as heroes. Commanders have an eye not just for what they do, but for what those around them do. Commanders size up people's strengths and weaknesses. They know where someone will shine and where they will collapse. Other warriors will obey a true commander because they can tell that the commander knows what he- or she- is doing.' Raoul picked up a quill and toyed with it. 'You've shown flashes of being a commander. I've seen it. So has Qasim, your friend Neal, even Wyldon, though it would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit it. My job is to see if you will do more than flash, with the right training. The realm needs commanders. Tortall is big. We have too many still-untamed pockets, too curse many hideyholes for rogues, and plenty of hungry enemies to nibble at our borders and our seafaring trade. If you have what it takes, the Crown will use you. We're too desperate for good commanders to let one slip away, even a female one. Now, finish that'- he pointed to the slate- 'and you can stop for tonight.
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Tamora Pierce (Squire (Protector of the Small, #3))