A Quote by Thomas Paine

Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.

Thomas Paine

Quote Topics

Enemies Fight Greatest Most Must Often Our Within

Quote Author

Thomas Paine
English - Activist
January 29, 1737 - June 8, 1809

It is in the field of prayer that life's critical battles are lost or won. We must conquer all our circumstances there. We must first of all bring them there. We must survey them there. We must master them there. In prayer we bring our spiritual enemies into the Presence of God and we fight them there. Have you tried that? Or have you been satisfied to meet and fight your foes in the open spaces of the world?

John Henry Jowett

The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.

Ayn Rand

Your enemies love your failures, sure. But what they love even more is to see you brought so low by those failures that you never get up again. Sometimes enemies aren't even external. Often, our biggest critic, our greatest enemy, is ourselves.

Kameron Hurley

A man must not only stand for the right principles, but he must also fight for them. Those who fight for principle can be proud of the friends they've gained and the enemies they've earned.

Ezra Taft Benson

And of what should we be afraid? Our captain on this battlefield is Christ Jesus. We have discovered what we have to do. Christ has bound our enemies for us and weakened them that they cannot overcome us unless we so choose to let them. So we must fight courageously and mark ourselves with the sign of the most Holy Cross.

St. Catherine of Siena

It is the basic principle of spiritual life that we learn the deepest things in unknown territory. Often it is when we feel most confused inwardly and are in the midst of our greatest difficulties that something new will open. We awaken most easily to the mystery of life through our weakest side. The areas of our greatest strength, where we are the most competent and clearest, tend to keep us away from the mystery.

Jack Kornfield

We don't seek to destroy our enemies. After all, Jesus taught that our love must extend even to enemies. It's a remarkable teaching. Not to destroy enemies, but to convert hearts, to win people over to the cause of justice.

Robert P. George

Not only must the most privileged feel they are brothers and sisters of the most destitute, but the most destitute must feel as well that something within them makes them equal to the greatest sages and geniuses.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Someone who wants to attain enlightenment must be brave. He must rush into the crowd of enemies with a dagger. In the practice of Zen, enemies are our delusive thoughts and passions.

Yamada Koun

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.

Abraham Lincoln

Chaos often fosters the greatest creativity. Breakdowns often precede the greatest breakthroughs. And when the pain is greatest is often when we're on the brink of the greatest realization.....When the pain is burned through rather than numbed, when our darkness is brought to light and then forgiven, then and only then can we move on. And move on we do.

Marianne Williamson

When whistleblowers come forward, we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them. Giving us the truth is not a crime. This is our data, our information, our history. We must fight to own it.

Sarah Harrison

We have to be bold in our national ambitions. First, we must win the fight against poverty within the next decade. Second, we must improve moral standards in government and society to provide a strong foundation for good governance. Third, we must change the character of our politics to promote fertile ground for reforms.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

Our greatest strength in our fight for justice is our people - the thousands of men and women who have dedicated their careers, often at great personal sacrifice, to working for justice in America.