Death Of An Enemy Quotes & Sayings

Be thankful you can feel pity and horror at the death of an enemy. The day we cease to care, even for our enemies, is the day we have lost this battle. — Margaret Weis

He was our enemy, but as it is strange, after so many years the death of an old enemy is like the death of an old friend. — John Edward Williams

But the fact is, death is not a confrontation. It is simply an event in the sequence of nature's ongoing rhythms. Not death but disease is the real enemy, disease the malign force that requires confrontation. Death is the surcease that comes when the exhausting battle has been lost. Even the confrontation with disease should be approached with the realization that many of the sicknesses of our species are simply conveyances for the inexorable journey by which each of us is returned to the same state of physical, and perhaps spiritual, nonexistence from which we emerged at conception. Every triumph over some major pathology, no matter how ringing the victory, is only a reprieve from the inevitable end. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Everybody is afraid of death for the simple reason that we have not tasted of life yet. The man who knows what life is, is never afraid of death; he welcomes death. Whenever death comes he hugs death, he embraces death, he welcomes death, he receives death as a guest. To the man who has not known what life is, death is an enemy; and to the man who knows what life is, death is the ultimate crescendo of life. — Rajneesh

Since dugpas wished to get you out of here, where you were safe, how
else should they expel you than by causing you to expel yourselves by
violence? When fools make war they expend their resources squandering
money and life and food until the victor loses with the vanquished,
and another, who is wiser, overwhelms them both. No dugpa would do
such foolishness. He sacrifices little dugpas, even as the governments
send soldiers to be slain, because there are always plenty who will
fill the lower ranks. But one little sleepy, stupid, belly-loving
dugpa is as useful to him as an army that a government flatters and
sends to its death; because he wages war by causing his enemy to
make mistakes, and he wins not by what he himself does, but through
the self-destroying acts of whomsoever he would conquer. — Talbot Mundy

Again, Rayford slid to the ground, raising his arms. "My Lord and my God, I am so unworthy." "And you, Rayford, who once were alienated and an enemy in your mind by wicked works, yet now I have reconciled the body of My flesh through death to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in God's sight." "Unworthy! Unworthy!" Rayford cried. "Justified by faith," Jesus said, "Justified. — Tim LaHaye

I heard a story," Aedion drawled to Rowan, "that you killed an enemy warlord using a table."
"Please,"Aelin said. "Who the hell told you that?"
"Quinn-your uncle's Captain of the Guard. He was an admirer of Prince Rowan's. He knew all the stories."
Aelin slid her eyes to Rowan, who smirked, bracing his sparring stick on the floor. "You can't be serious," she said. "What-you squashed him to death like a pressed grape? — Sarah J. Maas

The realm of death seems an enemy's country to most men, on whose shores they are loathly driven by stress of weather; to the wise man it is the desired port where he moors his bark gladly, as in some quiet haven of the Fortunate Isles; it is the golden west into which his sun sinks, and, sinking, casts back a glory upon the leaden cloud-tack which had darkly besieged his day. — James Russell Lowell

A straight fight in an equal battle takes some bravery, but braver is he who, knowing that he would have to sacrifice ninety-five as against five of the enemy, faces death. — Mahatma Gandhi

You act as if I were your enemy.
"You are my enemy. You seek to end the things I love."
And is an ending always bad? it asked. Must not all things, even worlds, someday end?
"There is no need to hasten that end," Vin said. "No reason to force it."
All things are subject to their own nature, Vin, Ruin said, seeming to flow around her. She could feel its touch on her - wet and delicate, like mist. You cannot blame me for what I am. Without me, nothing would end. Nothing could end. And therefore, nothing could grow. I am life. Would you fight life itself?
Vin fell silent.
Do not mourn because the day of this world's end has arrived, Ruin said. That end was ordained the very day of the world's conception. There is a beauty in death - the beauty of finality, the beauty of completion.
For nothing is truly complete until the day it is finally destroyed. — Brandon Sanderson

An old Celtic proverb boldly places death right at the center of life. 'Death is the middle of a long life,' they used to say. Ancient people did things like that; they put death at the center instead of casting it out of sight and leaving such an important subject until the last possible moment. Of course, they lived close to nature and couldn't help but see how the forest grew from fallen trees and how death seemed to replenish life from fallen members. Only the unwise and the overly fearful think that death is the blind enemy of life. — Michael Meade

...[T]he king is lying down, severely wounded; one of his faithful companions, Lucan the Butler, approaches, in tears, to say a final farewell. Arthur stands up to embrace him, "holding him so tightly against his chest that he smothers him, crushes his heart and kills him." This is a strange and dramatic event, unexpected, serving no plot purpose, but an event that recalls that Arthur was in origin a bear-king endowed with superhuman strength: like the animal he could kill his enemy in hand to hand combat simply by pressing him against his chest. The king is not aware of his animal strength, but even as he is dying, he retains the power to cause death by a mere embrace, a power that no human being possesses. (p.53-54) — Michel Pastoureau

Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her. — Ursula K. Le Guin

...[M]ortals are strange when people die. The more we hated or loved someone, the more we want to remember them. .... When people die, especially in a shocking, violent, or unexpected way, they tend to forgive, or at least forget, what angered them. It's a blessing of Persephone. She doesn't like it when people talk ill of the dead, being Queen of the Underworld and everything. It is also why we bring flowers for the dead. — Mandy Oviatt

For the man in the street, the philosophies of opposites, particularly Good and Evil, have served as a torture chamber, a crucifix made from metaphor. Thrust into a world which views him as the property of Gods and States and overwhelmed by an unrepayable debt, the metaphysics of slavery and the facts of pain, pleasure and death; bolstered by science, whose theorists have become the whores of the state, man is now informed that he is ill. The proof of this is his refusal to submit completely. The world debt is due to his saying 'no' to total slavery. He will not obey. We are at War, and man is the enemy. The question is: Who is on the other side? — Christopher S. Hyatt

You don't understand. How could you? We were in the worst sort of hell. We weren't living day to day or even hour to hour. We survived minute by excruciating minute. The next day was an eternity away and we didn't want it. Death wasn't the enemy. It was our salvation. — Maya Banks

Oh the grave!
the grave!
It buries every error
covers every defect
extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him! — Washington Irving

In the modern era, many thinkers began to mistrust faith, viewing it as 'blind' and an enemy of reason. Their watchword was 'reason alone.' One of the difficulties of this stance is that reason cannot test its own reliability, any more than soapstone can test its own hardness. Any argument, accomplished by reasoning, that what reasoning accomplishes can be trusted, would be circular, because it would take for granted the very thing that it was trying to prove.
Suppose I am at the window of a burning building. Although I can hear the firemen calling to me from far below, I cannot see them because of all the smoke. They are telling me to jump. Though I may have every reason to believe that they will catch me in their net, I may not trust them enough to overcome my fear, and so, hesitating, I burn to death. Obviously, my reasons are not the same as trust; faith surpasses reason. Even so they are reasons for trust; though faith surpasses reason, it is not irrational. — J. Budziszewski

It struck me that Lee was in many ways our true hero. Lee was the one who did the dirtiest jobs, quietly, without fuss, without going into big emotional scenes. He was so efficient, so reliable, so brave. Whenever we fell short, he made up the gap. I'm not just talking about the red hot moments, when enemy soldiers were shooting at us, when we were within a moment of death. I'm talking about the sourer times too, when we were so tired we could hardly remember to breathe, or we were so bored we'd pick at each other just for something to do, or so distressed we'd wish a soldier would come along and blow us into oblivion with an M16. At all those times Lee stood strong. He was like the Wirrawee grain silo. You could see the grain silo from miles away, tall and reliable. It stood for Wirrawee, and it gave you a safe comforting feeling to know it was there. That was how I'd felt about Lee during the war. — John Marsden

If I'm the enemy then really let me have it. If moral outrage about the state of the world is consuming your life, paralyzing you, taking over your world, then set fire to the reader in an act of revenge. Instead you leave the reader, or this reader at least, indifferent, watching your ineffective life unravel ineffectually. If our wealth is criminal then let's live with the criminal joy of pirates or fight to the death to bring a sliver more of justice into being. Not the passive slither forward you are attempting to pass off as literature. — Jacob Wren

This must surely be one of the most astounding documents ever presented to an Ally when engaged in a life and death struggle. For it imposed what was really a veto on the best opportunity of cutting the common enemy's life-line and of protecting our own." By acquiescing to such an outrage, Liddell Hart contended, the British General Staff were essentially "accessories to the crime," that crime being that the British in Egypt had now been given no alternative but to await another assault on the Suez Canal, and to then launch their own attack against the very strongest point of the Turkish line - the narrow front of southern Palestine - an approach that was to ultimately cost them fifty thousand more casualties. — Scott Anderson

Road racing imitates life, the way it would be without the corruptive influence of civilization. When you see an enemy lying on the ground, what's your first reaction? To help him to his feet. In road racing, you kick him to death — Tim Krabbe

If in fact your time to be called before God, you typically won't know it. Sometimes you will, and these are the hardest of times: When the blood pours from your nose and down your throat, clogging it, causing you to spit and gag. You heave for breath in the smoke and dust. Your equipment seems to suffocate you. You wipe the salty sweat and grime from your eyes, only to realize that it is blood, either yours or that of the enemy. You would stand, but you can't move your legs. You grasp the open, gaping wounds in your body, trying not to pass out from the pain. You feel the anger thinking of the loved ones you will never see again, and losing your life infuriates your soul. You rage to get to your feet and grab for a weapon, any weapon. Regardless of your race, culture, or religion, you want to die standing, fighting like a warrior, an American, so others won't have to. For those looking for a definition, this is the price of freedom. — Rusty Bradley

Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so. — Laurence Sterne

Rumplestiltskin. This thing we have, it's never been easy. I've lost you so many times. I've lost you to darkness, to weakness and finally, to death. But now I realize, I realize that I have not spent my life losing you, I've spent my life finding you.

Belle. When we met, I wasn't just unloved and unloving. I was an enemy of love. Love had only brought me pain. My walls were up, but you brought them down. You brought me home, you brought light into my life and chased away all the darkness and I vow to you. — Once Upon A Time

One step across the dividing line, so like the one between the living and the dead and you enter an unknown world of suffering and death. What will you find there? Who will be there? There, just just beyond the field, that tree, that sunlit roof? No one knows, and yet you want to know. You dread crossing that line, and yet you want to cross it. You know sooner or later you will have to go across and find out what is there beyond it, just as you must inevitably found out what lies beyond death. Yet here you are, fit and strong, carefree and excited, with men all around you just the same- strong, excited and full of life.' This is what all men think when they get sight of the enemy, or they feel it if they do not think it, and it is this feeling that gives a special lustre and a delicious edge to the awareness of everything that is now happening. — Leo Tolstoy

Destructive criticism is the biggest single enemy of human potential. It is worse than cancer or heart disease. While those diseases can ultimately lead to the deterioration and death of an individual, destructive criticism kills the soul of the person but leaves the body walking around. — Brian Tracy

His men howled with him. They were caught up in Baird's madness. At this hour, under the fire of the sun and emboldened by the arrack and rum they had drunk in their long wait in the trenches, the redcoats and sepoys had become gods of war. They gave death with impunity as they followed a warmaddened Scotsman down an enemy wall that was sticky with blood. Baird would have his city or else he would die in its dust. — Bernard Cornwell

Home before the leaves fall' the soldiers all shouted to their families in August 1914 as they marched toward an enemy who felt the same way. Both sides prayed to the same god for victory, with the equal assurance that that god was on their side. Like helpless actors in a play the script of which they seemed to have no role in writing, the leaders of the nations in 1914 helplessly played their parts as hourly Europe lurched toward war until all the major countries on the continent were sucked into a gigantic maelstrom that lasted for a horrendous 1,561 days, toppled four monarchies, destroyed a centuries-old social structure, decimated thousands of towns and villages, and left a number of dead that God alone could count. As for the misery the war caused, it cannot begin to be calculated. The dead can be buried and forgotten and the villages rebuilt, but for the survivors the mental scars could not be erased except by death. — Jamie H. Cockfield

He, who for an ordinary cause, resigns the fate of his patient to mercury, is a vile enemy to the sick; and, if he is tolerably popular, will, in one successful season, have paved the way for the business of life, for he has enough to do, ever afterward, to stop the mercurial breach of the constitutions of his dilapidated patients. He has thrown himself in fearful proximity to death, and has now to fight him at arm's length as long as the patient maintains a miserable existence. — Nathaniel Chapman

Death. Now, that was an interesting notion. One that, perhaps, he should have been more familiar with than any other being, but the truth was, he knew nothing about it at all. The Jaghut went to war against death. So many met that notion with disbelief, or confusion. They could not understand.
Who is the enemy? The enemy is surrender. Where is the battlefield? In the heart of despair. How is victory won? It lies within reach. All you need do is choose to recognize it. Failing that, you can always cheat. Which is what I did. How did I defeat death? By taking its throne. — Steven Erikson

Before her lay the enemy. The only end guaranteed if she forgot that fact? Death - or worse. Strangely enough, approval from those who don't even bother to introduce themselves before commenting on my shortcomings ... tends not to make much of an impression on me. — Danielle Monsch

It is not the willingness to kill on the part of our soldiers which most concerns me. That is an inherent part of war. It is our lack of respect for even the admirable characteristics of our enemy; for courage, for suffering, for death, for his willingness to die for his beliefs, for his companies and squadrons which go forth, one after another, to annihilation against our superior training and equipment. — Charles Lindbergh

My galley, charged with forgetfulness,
Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine enemy, alas,
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;
And every oar a thought in readiness,
As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace
Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,
Hath done the weared cords great hinderance;
Wreathed with error and eke with ignorance.
The stars be hid that led me to this pain.
Drowned is reason that should me consort,
And I remain despairing of the port. — Thomas Wyatt

... of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines ... Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred ... As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is ... a faith that ... has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. — David Bentley Hart

And while I'm on the subject, let me say something about Harry Potter. [Gravels her voice.] Warlocks are enemies of God!! [Back to normal screech.] And I don't care what kind of hero they are, they're an enemy of God. And had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter woulda been put to death! [Applause.] You don't make heroes out of warlocks. This is the generation that's gonna stand for purity, an' righteousnesss, an' holiness, an' you're gonna serve the lord all the days of your life. — Becky Fischer

You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death. — Athanasius Of Alexandria

Lebedeva's eyes shone. Masha, listen to me. Cosmetics are an extension of the will. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? When I paint my eyes to match my soup, it is not because I have nothing better to do than worry over trifles. It says, I belong here, and you will not deny me. When I streak my lips red as foxgloves, I say, Come here, male. I am your mate, and you will not deny me. When I pinch my cheeks and dust them with mother-of-pearl, I say, Death, keep off, I am your enemy, and you will not deny me. I say these things, and the world listens, Masha. Because my magic is as strong as an arm. I am never denied. — Catherynne M Valente

The fish was an enemy. It had come upon the community and killed two men, a woman, and a child. The people of Amity would demand the death of the fish. They would need to see it dead before they could feel secure enough to resume their normal lives. — Peter Benchley

I ever get out of here," I said over the noise of my enemy hitting the far wall with shattering force, "I will personally beat Clyde Clary to death with nothing but an old shoe. — Robert J. Crane

Life is a series of diminishments. Each cessation of an activity either from choice or some other variety of infirmity is a death, a putting to final rest. Each loss, of friend or precious enemy, can be equated with the closing off of a room containing blocks of nerves and soon after the closing off the nerves atrophy and that part of oneself, in essence, drops away. The self is lightened, is held on earth by a gram less of mass and will. — Coleman Dowell

Together the magicks swirled and danced around us, invisible but tangible, like an breeze. This wasn't defensive or offensive magic. It wasn't used to gather information, for strategy or diplomacy, or to fight a war against supernatural enemy.
It simply was.
It was fundamental, inexorable. It was nothing and everything, infinity and oblivion, from the magnificent furnace of a star to the electrons that hummed in an atom. It was life and death and everything in between, the urge to fight and grow and swim and fly. It was a cascade of water across boulders, the slow-moving advance of mountain glaciers, the march of time. — Chloe Neill

For the young, death is an enemy they wish to try their strength against. For those of us a little older, she is an old friend, an old lover, but one we are not eager to meet again soon. — Robert Jordan

I am shocked at the attitude of our American troops. They have no respect for death, the courage of an enemy soldier, or many of the ordinary decencies of life. — Charles Lindbergh

If I lived by some code, my actions would become predictable. The enemy would take advantage of this and I'd be killed. An honorable death doesn't exist. Death is death. But it's funny that survival and revenge require the same thing: no honor codes, no supposed higher principles to aspire to, no mercy — Frank Beddor

An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching. — Ambrose Bierce

But people misunderstand warfare and think it is an end unto itself. But on the international stage, war is nothing more than another tool of diplomacy. If your country doesn't have a credible, powerful military force capable of bringing pain, death, and destruction to an enemy, then your diplomats can't get much done, because you simply aren't powerful - there's no threat of pain they can wield. That's why the western Pacific island nation of Nauru doesn't have a seat on the UN Security Council. Not recognizing this principle is shortsighted (no disrespect intended to the fine people of Nauru). — Jamie Smith

Today, men, I ask you your lives."
"I ask of you your lives and your courage. I ask of your faith, your honor
your strength, and your compassion. For today I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it well, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this ...
... "Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is another victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frusturated!"
There was a brief pause.
"In the end they shall kill us. But first they shall fear us! — Brandon Sanderson

Do not press an enemy at bay. Prince Fu Ch'ai said: Wild beasts, when at bay, fight desperately. How much more is this true of men! If they know there is no alternative, they will fight to the death. — Sun Tzu

She wanted to die. She wanted to die. Because then it would be over. All the loss, all the grief, all the pain, the emptiness - over. And she had said nothing then. Nothing. Nor had she crawled into her room and swallowed her mother's pills, or crawled into her bath and opened up her own wrists. As if death were somehow personal. As if death were somehow an enemy that could be faced and stared down, she would not give it the satisfaction of seeing how badly it had hurt her. Again. — Michelle Sagara West

I used to suppose that certain evils could never befall a being in possession of a sound mind; that true virtue supplies us with energy which vice can never resist; that it was always in our power to obstruct, by his own death, the designs of an enemy who aimed at less than our lives. — Charles Brockden Brown

Fireheart dashed to the warrior's side. Cloudtail was standing stiff-legged, every hair in his pelt on end as if he were facing an enemy. His eyes were fixed on the limp heap of tabby fur huddled at his paws.
"Why, Fireheart?" Cloudtail wailed. "Why her?"
Fireheart knew, but rage and grief made it hard to speak. "Because Tigerstar wants the pack to get a taste of cat blood," he rasped.
The dead cat lying in front of them was Brindleface. — Erin Hunter

How... how do I die?"
"In pain," he said. "Screaming... She said there was an enemy you had to fight. A creature of darkness. She said Skulduggery fought by your side for some of it, but... she sensed things more than she saw them, you know? She felt terror, and death, and futility. She felt the world on the edge of destruction, and she sensed evil. Unimaginable evil. — Derek Landy

There is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Just then Warren's breathing, which part of me was listening to with rapt attention, stopped. Adam heard it too, crouching as if there were an enemy in the room. Maybe there was. Death is an enemy, right? — Patricia Briggs

Mankind's most dangerous enemy is the human imagination. What their minds can imagine is far more malicious than the deepest furnaces of their chimerical Hell. They imagined an invisible god to corrupt their thoughts with everlasting fantasies and eternal lies. When the human species invented God the darkness of imagination was present. Mankind imagined an unseen creator to form their bodies and then to reform them indestructible upon death. The mortal truth became the immortal delusion. They possessed no knowledge of God so they invented him. Where human knowledge ends the imagined God begins. — C.J. Anderson

Death wasn't part of God's original plan for humanity, and the Bible calls death an enemy - the last enemy to be destroyed. — Billy Graham

Death has such great importance in this society that it affects everything. I learned from my guru that death is not the enemy, I see it as another moment. Yet it's the end of an incarnation and means going on to other incarnations. — Ram Dass

We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived. It is an enemy. It cuts us off from all the wonderful pleasures of this world. We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils. The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of a longing, but the end of hope. The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy. — John Piper