Natural Enemies Quotes

• Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

  Jessamyn West

  Friendship, Being Alone, Writing

  Jessamyn West (1973). “Hide and Seek: A Continuing Journey”, Harcourt

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stereotypically speaking feminists can't take a joke. ::audience boo:: See?

  Louis C. K.

  Feminist, Audience, Jokes

  8 Copy quote

• The eagle had two natural enemies: storms and serpents. He embraced the storm, waiting on the rock for the right thermal current and then using that to carry him higher. While other birds were taking cover, the eagle was soaring. An eagle would never fight against the storms of life.

  Karen Kingsbury

  Fighting, Rocks, Eagles

  Karen Kingsbury (2008). “The Timeless Love Collection: A Time to Dance and A Time to Embrace”, p.212, Thomas Nelson Inc

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Errors, Political

  3 Copy quote

• The industrial corporation is the natural enemy of nature.

  Edward Abbey

  Enemy, Corporations, Natural

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.47, RosettaBooks

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Love, Passion, Independent

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XXI, 1840.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• In every age its (liberty's) progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food

  Lord Acton

  Wisdom, Strong, Ignorance

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.28, Jazzybee Verlag

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most cats do not approach humans recklessly. The possibility of concealed weapons, clods or sticks, tend to make them reserved. Homeless cats in particular-with some justification, unfortunately-consider humans their natural enemies. Much ceremony must be observed, and a number of diplomatic feelers put out, before establishing a state of truce.

  Lloyd Alexander

  Cat, Animal, Numbers

  Lloyd Alexander (1956). “My Five Tigers”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't view prosecutors and attorneys as natural enemies. ... Though their roles are oppositional, the two simply have different roles to play in pursuit of the larger purpose, realizing the rule of law. ... This is not to deny that the will to win drives those efforts. ... Rather, it is simply to insist that ultimately, neither the accused nor society is served unless the integrity of the system is set above the expedient purposes of either side.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Integrity, Winning, Views

  11 Copy quote

• Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Enemy, Delight

  "Democracy in America".

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water and stupid men.

  Richard Nickel

  Stupid, Men, Two

  44 Copy quote

• I don’t believe man is woman’s natural enemy. Perhaps his lawyer is.

  Shana Alexander

  Believe, Men, Enemy

  6 Copy quote

• Uniformity, in its motives, its goals, its far-ranging consequences, is the natural enemy of poetry, not to mention the enemy of trees, the soil, the exemplary life therein.

  C.D. Wright

  Goal, Tree, Enemy

  C.D. Wright (2012). “Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil”, p.29, Copper Canyon Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

  Robert Altman

  Art, Odds, Enemy

  Robert Altman, David Sterritt (2000). “Robert Altman: Interviews”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man who tries to make the workmen believe that their employers are their natural enemies is indeed the worst enemy of workmen. For the employees of yesterday are the employers of today, and the employees of today can and will partly be the employers of tomorrow.

  William J. H. Boetcker

  Believe, Men, Worst Enemy

  3 Copy quote

• The savage hatred I feel for crowds is getting worse, natural enemies that they are of imagination and of thought.

  Isabelle Eberhardt

  Imagination, Hatred, Enemy

  Isabelle Eberhardt (2003). “The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt”, Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only 'natural enemies' are those who take one's very nature as an offence.

  Simon May

  Enemy, Natural, Offence

  "The Little Book of Big Thoughts". Book by Simon May, 2005.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Besides, humans aren't prey. They are our natural enemies. They are to be avoided.

  Cynthia Leitich Smith

  Enemy, Natural, Prey

  Cynthia Leitich Smith (2010). “Tantalize”, p.54, Candlewick Press

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I recall my teachers at school, I realise that half of them were abnormal. . . . We pupils of old Austria were brought up to respect old people and women. But on our professors we had no mercy; they were our natural enemies. The majority of them were somewhat mentally deranged, and quite a few ended their days as honest-to-God lunatics! . . . I was in particular bad odor with the teachers. I showed not the slightest aptitude for foreign languages - though I might have, had not the teacher been a congenital idiot. I could not bear the sight of him.

  Adolf Hitler

  Teacher, School, Sight

  7 Copy quote

• It seems that man's greatest natural enemy is the target.

  Demetri Martin

  Men, Enemy, Target

  Twitter post from Aug 27, 2012

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fathers and sons are natural enemies. Look at any species. Shark, sees his father in the water, he's not thinking, Hey dad, wassup ? He's thinking, Back off, old man, this surfer carcass is mine. Of course, when his girlfriend swims up and she's like, Way, you know, there's enough surfer for everybody. You and your dad need to frenzy together more. Leave you father a thigh.

  Christopher Titus

  Girlfriend, Dad, Father

  "Titus / NASCAR". www.imdb.com. 2001.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food.

  Lord Acton

  Strong, Ignorance, Men

  "The History of Freedom in Antiquity". Lord Acton's opening statement of his speech on February 28, 1877; later quoted in "The History of Freedom and Other Essays" edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, 1907.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a cultural form, database represents the world as a list of items and it refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and narrative are natural enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world.

  Lev Manovich

  Order, Enemy, Events

  23 Copy quote

• If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or non-human, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the "external" world - -especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside.

  Alan Watts

  Motivational, War, Heart

  "The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are" by Alan Watts, (p. 98), 1966.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You know, Jacob, if it weren’t for the fact that we’re natural enemies and that you’re also trying to steal away the reason for my existence, I might actually like you.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Enemy, Trying, Might

  Stephenie Meyer (2009). “Eclipse”, p.288, Hachette UK

  5 Copy quote

  Show source