What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
—Alexander Pope, 1712No one wins a quarrel by quarreling.
—German proverbRivalry is the whetstone of talent.
—Roman proverbOne of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
—E.B. White, 1977The hatred of relatives is the bitterest.
—Tacitus, 117To outwit an enemy is not only just and glorious but profitable and sweet.
—Plutarch, c. 100With the dead there is no rivalry.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1839Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665Hate must make a man productive. Otherwise one might as well love.
—Karl Kraus, 1912Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.
—Arabic proverbEnvy and hatred are apt to blind the eyes and render them unable to behold things as they are.
—Margaret of Valois, c. 1600An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1746He laughs best who laughs last.
—French proverbAll our enemies are mortal.
—Paul Valéry, 1942It would seem that in history it’s never a tooth for a tooth, but a thousand, a hundred thousand for one.
—Sybille Bedford, 1963Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.
—William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate!
—Willa Cather, 1915We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
—Aesop, c. 600 BCIt is permitted to learn even from an enemy.
—Ovid, c. 8Enemies are so stimulating.
—Katharine Hepburn, 1969Rivalry adds so much to the charms of one’s conquests.
—Louisa May Alcott, 1866Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
—George Eliot, 1857Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
—Samuel Johnson, 1751I shall embrace my rival—until I suffocate him.
—Jean Racine, 1669For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, 1813Today’s friend may be tomorrow’s foe.
—Sophocles, 440 BCHow can we bear misfortune most easily? If we see our enemies faring worse.
—Thales of Miletus, c. 585 BCYou shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
—Joseph Conrad, 1900The envious die not once, but as often as the envied win applause.
—Baltasar Gracián, 1647Don’t hit a man at all if you can avoid it, but if you have to hit him, knock him out.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1916Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.
—Book of Job, c. 600 BCWhen a coward sees a man he can beat, he becomes hungry for a fight.
—Chinua Achebe, 1960The men of today are born to criticize; of Achilles they see only the heel.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1880Perish the universe, provided I have my revenge.
—Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, 1654The only competition worthy a wise man is with himself.
—Anna Jameson, 1846We die of comfort and by conflict live.
—May Sarton, 1953Quarreling must lead to disorder, and disorder exhaustion.
—Xunzi, c. 250 BCIt is very foolish to attack one’s enemy openly if one can injure him in secret.
—Giambattista Giraldi, 1543Enemies to me are the sauce piquant to my dish of life.
—Elsa Maxwell, 1955Hoping for new friendship from old enemies is / Like expecting to find a rose in a furnace.
—Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, 1612Put national causes first and personal grudges last.
—Sima Qian, c. 91 BCDo we want laurels for ourselves most, / Or most that no one else shall have any?
—Amy Lowell, 1922From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Herman Melville, 1851Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.
—Sigmund Freud, 1930