Top 100 Adversary Quotes
#1. The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.
Edmund Burke
#2. We cannot hope to control what we do not understand, nor to confront our adversary, war, with our eyes averted.
Carl Mydans
#3. Tests were always easy for me. I saw them as games, saw myself as being in a contest against a mythical adversary, and welcomed the challenge.
Walter Dean Myers
#4. Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Samuel Johnson
#5. Seeing me before him, / The adversary attacks, / But by that time / I am already standing / Safely behind him.
Morihei Ueshiba
#6. Jesus defeated satan in Gethsemane on the cross, not by directly confronting the devil, but by fulfilling the destiny to which He had been called. The greatest battle that was ever won was accomplished by the apparent death of the victor, without even a word of rebuke to His adversary!
Francis Frangipane
#7. And once you're unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you're unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary
Cillian Murphy
#8. When you have gained a victory, do not push it too far; 'tis sufficient to let the company and your adversary see 'tis in your power but that you are too generous to make use of it.
Eustace Budgell
#10. When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion.
Phyllis McGinley
#11. I call it Andskoti, the Adversary. It is woven with the most powerful paradoxes in the Nine Worlds - Wi-Fi with no lag, a politician's sincerity, a printer that prints, healthy deep-fried food, and an interesting grammar lecture!
Rick Riordan
#12. Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought.
Martin Heidegger
#13. The devil?" Jason heaved the tick over his shoulder like a collier with his sack. "Satan. The adversary. The enemy of the plan of God. The undoer. The destroyer. Yes. He definitely was." Jason smiled. "But he meant well.
Orson Scott Card
#14. It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is one among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.
Alexander Hamilton
#15. Time is a watchful adversary, who waits enduringly for that merciless hour, hurrying to work the hands of separation.
Kelly Vang
#16. We become distracted from productive labors by our perceived opponents; we become focused on them and not on our larger calling to advance our nation; our debate becomes more about scoring points against an adversary and less about advancing our common cause.
Cory Booker
#17. They think virtues are man-made, only exist because they exist, but if no human had ever existed, The Virtues would persist for they hold their being from the very Presence of the Adversary Himself.
Geoffrey Wood
#18. The nearer a person approaches the Lord, a greater power will be manifested by the adversary to prevent the accomplishment of His purposes.
Joseph Smith Jr.
#19. Those who are preparing for the coming of Christ should be sober, and watch unto prayer, for our adversary, the Devil, goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; whom we are to resist steadfast in the faith.
Ellen G. White
#20. Always remember that if this were not the Lord's work, the adversary would not pay attention to us.
Spencer W. Kimball
#21. It seems The Adversary needs neither their guilt nor their request, but simply their return. In other words, since repentance is the process whereby guilt is turned into gratitude, He doesn't mind if they skip a step and go directly to gratitude.
Geoffrey Wood
#22. I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.
Robert F. Kennedy
#23. Our resolved will to endure any hostility is the sure way to win the adversary.
Lailah Gifty Akita
#24. Love was death's only adversary, the only thing powerful enough to combat its clawing, desperate grasp.
Anna Carey
#25. When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison.
Paulo Coelho
#26. Count not thyself to have found true peace, if thou hast felt no grief; nor that then all is well if thou hast no adversary; nor that this is perfect, if all things fall out according to thy desire.
Thomas A Kempis
#27. The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores.
Ronald Reagan
#28. All battles should be based on principles. And in a battle of principles, it is not the size of the adversary that matters. It is the size of the principle.
Subroto Bagchi
#29. It is not cowardly, quite the contrary, to seek to meet the adversary and know his intentions. However, it is cowardly, shameful and treasonable to lay down arms.
King Hassan II
#30. Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary.
Paulo Coelho
#31. Our nuclear weapons are meant purely as a deterrent against nuclear adventure by an adversary.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
#32. Satan, our adversary, wants us to fail. He spreads lies as part of his effort to destroy our belief. He slyly suggests that the doubter, the skeptic, the cynic is sophisticated and intelligent, while those who have faith in God and His miracles are naive, blind, or brainwashed.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
#33. Next to victory, there is nothing so sweet as defeat, if only the right adversary overcomes you.
Henry Ward Beecher
#34. Cancer is such a ruthless adversary because it behaves as if it has its own fiendishly cunning agenda.
Paul Davies
#35. In order to persuade Britain to pack up, to compel her to make peace, it was essential to rob her of her hope of being able still to confront us, on the continent itself, with an adversary of a stature equal to our own.
Adolf Hitler
#36. There cannot be self-restraint in the absence of desire: when there is no adversary, what avails thy courage? Hark, do not castrate thyself, do not become a monk: chastity depends on the existence of lust.
Rumi
#37. The Adversary seldom loses when you play on his playing field. It's called the home court advantage.
Randall Wright
#38. Neither side is guiltless if its adversary is appointed judge.
Lucan
#39. In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror.
Ismail Kadare
#40. Reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace.
Hillary Clinton
#41. Oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments and putting better in their place.
Samuel Johnson
#42. Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied.
Richard J. Foster
#43. The children of God can defeat the adversary, for we have fought him before.
Chris Stewart
#44. That dusty hill we can scarcely look upon and then only with pain, The Adversary, also with pain, does and must ever witness The Crucifixion.
Geoffrey Wood
#46. Historically, it is important to try to understand your adversary in order to figure out how they are thinking, what they will be doing, how they will react.
Hillary Clinton
#47. My beloved, you have chosen me. You have been courted by my adversary, and you have chosen me. You have answered my call to the Circle, and today I call you my bride.
Ted Dekker
#48. Mr. Guppy suspects everybody ... of entertaining ... Sinister designs upon him ... he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, where there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary
Charles Dickens
#49. The Adversary, of course, simply wants them to lay down their sins, guilt and all, and follow Him. But this type holds on to their sinfulness and their guilt for it, because otherwise, they'd have no relationship with Him at all. And, of course, no relationship can be based on guilt and survive.
Geoffrey Wood
#50. If one man does not make a move, the other must, and by permitting the adversary to make the attack one learns something about him.
Agatha Christie
#51. We begin the path toward defeating Mexico's real adversary, who represents authoritarianism and the worst antidemocratic practice, who represents a return to corruption as a system and impunity as conviction. That adversary is Pena Nieto and his party.
Josefina Vazquez Mota
#52. The capacity of any conqueror is more likely than not to be an illusion produced by the incapacity of his adversary.
George Bernard Shaw
#53. Conservatives understand Halloween, liberals only understand Christmas. If you want to control a population, don't give it social services, give it a scary adversary.
Tom Robbins
#54. We were given our agency. We must use it wisely and remain close to the Spirit; otherwise, we foolishly find ourselves yielding to the enticements of the adversary.
Boyd K. Packer
#55. Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.
George F. Kennan
#56. Presidential campaign observer Teddy White on the second Kennedy-Nixon debate in which the candidates spoke from separate television studios: It was as if, separated by comments from his adversary, Richard Nixon was more at ease and could speak directly to the nation that lay between them.
David Pietrusza
#57. War is not at all such a difficult art as people think ... In reality it would seem that he is vanquished who is afraid of his adversary and the the whole secret lies in that.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#58. If a man ... would shake and not be shaken, grip and not be gripped, taking care always to squeeze the hand of his adversary as hard as it squeezed him, then he suffered no inconvenience from it.
James K. Polk
#59. I am the nice adversary, the guy that's going to ask the tough questions and is not going to be happy with the quick answer.
Guillermo Del Toro
#60. I try not to blame the public, because the public - men, especially - have seen not great portrayals of women in supporting roles, because they're not given the lead roles a lot of the time. Especially in comedy, they're relegated to the adversary, which is like "the mean girlfriend."
Paul Feig
#61. Marketing is not what lures a writer to this pursuit. Marketing is the adversary that arrives smuggled inside the Trojan Horse of one's creative impulse.
Jane Friedman
#62. Use magic in anger, and you will harm yourself much more quickly than you will harm your adversary.
Lev Grossman
#63. He learned...never to show his anger or hatred against a stronger adversary, for fear of being crushed.
Janvier Chouteu-Chando
#64. Self-criticism expands the opportunities for discourse and eliminates the need for an adversary.
Mason Cooley
#65. The adversary would keep us busily engaged in a multitude of trivial things in an effort to keep us distracted from the few vital things that make all the difference.
Ardeth Greene Kapp
#66. He was a reporter for The Adversary. It was his job to stalk people. He was one step above paparazzi and a couple below common variety garden snake.
- Jae-Sun Fields, pg. 28
Z.A. Maxfield
#67. The most formidable adversary of evil is a persistent man with a loud conscience.
Justin Alcala
#68. My real adversary has no name, no face, no party. It will never be elected, yet it governs - the adversary is the world of finance.
Francois Hollande
#69. Teach them the shame that tells the lie, "I am unforgivable," when the truth is, "I feel unforgivable, but it was out of my control." Never let them switch those round right or The Adversary will liberate them in a heartbeat, like a bird flying from a cage.
Geoffrey Wood
#70. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
John Milton
#71. Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#72. Every soul confined to a concentration camp of sin and guilt has a key to the gate. The adversary cannot hold them if they know how to use it. The key is labeled Repentance.
Boyd K. Packer
#73. He towered over the Queen with his wings fanned out. Azrael realized he was threatening her, like a peacock intimidating its adversary.
A.J. Flowers
#74. She's an adversary, but undeniably an equal. Maybe she can bring me back from the beyond. If anyone can do it, I'm beginning to realize it could be her. Like she said, all I have to do is try.
Collette West
#75. To help someone who is down on their luck is admirable. To help an adversary who is down on their luck is divine.
Christopher Jones
#76. If you are focused on your calling, the efforts of any adversary will prove powerless
Sunday Adelaja
#78. Never disperse your focus unless absolutely necessary. Face one adversary at a time.
Dan Brown
#80. It is narual for enemy to attack on the weaker side of the adversary.
Chanakya
#82. That sense of entitlement is precisely where we want them because the right to happiness is directly opposed to one of The Adversary's greatest curatives - gratitude.
Geoffrey Wood
#83. At about this time the Asiatic wolf, a fierce predator that despite its small size would eat a human if it had the opportunity, came under human control because its friendly young cubs could be fed and trained. A dangerous adversary was turned into a dedicated helper - the dog.
Mark Kurlansky
#84. We should seek after spiritual gifts. They can lead us to God. They can shield us from the power of the adversary. They can compensate for our inadequacies and repair our imperfections.
Dallin H. Oaks
#85. I started running 3 miles every morning after throat surgery to remove a cyst last year. The gym used to be my adversary. But that has all changed. Now, I look forward to it every morning.
Rachael Ray
#86. Worshiping God even amid despair is a way to defy the Adversary and declare our valuing of the good-the best-in life: the Lord!
Jack W. Hayford
#87. As sisters in Zion, we can be obstacles to the adversary's conspiracy against families and virtue.
Sheri L. Dew
#89. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.
Jonathan Franzen
#90. It is wrong to follow the advice of an adversary; nevertheless it is right to hear it, that you may do the contrary; and this is the essence of good policy.
Saadi
#91. Great advantage is drawn from knowledge of your adversary, and when you know the measure of his intelligence and character, you can use it to play on his weakness.
Frederick The Great
#92. We don't have a single big advantage," he once told an old adversary, publisher Tim O'Reilly, back when they were arguing over Amazon protecting its patented 1-Click ordering method from rivals like Barnes & Noble. "So we have to weave a rope of many small advantages.
Brad Stone
#93. But as I say, if you look to the state of their souls you'll find the situation nowhere near as grave as polls suggest. There's more to being a servant of The Adversary than signing up.
Geoffrey Wood
#94. Gandhi saw how people have to re-think their own individuality before engaging in political activity. Otherwise they're just playing the game that the adversary has set out.
Pankaj Mishra
#95. Every character needs an adversary - one who is both challenging and a contrast for the hero. The best adversaries reveal something about the character they're contrasting.
Greg Rucka
#96. Jesus has redeemed not only our souls, but our bodies. When the Lord shall deliver His captive people out of the land of the enemy He will not leave a bone of one of them in the adversary's power. The dominion of death shall be utterly broken.
Charles Spurgeon
#97. I believe that sitting naked across from your adversary in a steam room makes negotiations more productive.
David Shapiro
#98. If you wait and watch, she's found, things so often reveal themselves, despite your adversary's best efforts.
Robert Jackson Bennett
#99. One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself; if he is ignorant what his adversary is about?
Antoine-Henri Jomini
#100. So there was but one way of setting matters right, as Mr Malison had generosity enough left in him to perceive; and that was, to make a friend of his adversary. Indeed there is that in the depths of every human breast which makes a reconciliation the only victory that can give true satisfaction.
George MacDonald
