A Quote by Petrarch

Man has not a greater enemy than himself.

Petrarch

Quote Topics

Enemy Greater Himself Man Than

Quote Author

Petrarch
Italian - Poet
July 20, 1304 - July 19, 1374

Man has no greater enemy than himself.

Petrarch

Man is wise ... when he recognizes no greater enemy than himself.

Marguerite de Navarre

Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.

Petrarch

How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!--and such reverence is a bridge to love.--For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture "the enemy" as the man of ressentiment conceives him--and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived "the evil enemy," "the Evil One," and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a "good one"--himself!

Friedrich Nietzsche

The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized.

Tom Robbins

Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of humanity, of God.

Rabindranath Tagore

A man has no enemy worse than himself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself?

W. Somerset Maugham

Man believes himself always greater than he is, and is esteemed less than he is worth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities. There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.

Laozi

A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.

William Hazlitt

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The difference between human heroes and sacred characters lies just in this: the man is just a man, but behind the man of God, God Himself is ever standing greater than the man and overshadowing him by His infinite and glorious presence.

A. B. Simpson

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man, by one lower than himself.

Henry Ward Beecher

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.