Know Your Adversary Quotes & Sayings

Why seeketh thou revenge, O man! with what purpose is it that thou pursuest it? Thinkest thou to pain thine adversary by it? Know that thou thyself feelest its greatest torments. — Akhenaton

Only way to eliminate the element of surprise is to know yourself and now your adversary. — Georges St-Pierre

That's the test, when all is said and done. Does it persuade one to do good, to rise, to stand tall, to do the right thing, to be kind, to be generous? Then it is of the Spirit of God. If it is dark, sinister, ugly, not good, then you may know that it is of the adversary. — Gordon B. Hinckley

No one likes to be afraid. Fear is the enemy of love & faith & it robs us of our sleep & our sunrise & makes us treacherous & venal& fills our glands with toxins & effaces our identity & gives flight to any vestige of self respect. If you have ever been afraid, truly afraid, in a way that makes your hair soggy with sweat & turns your skin gray & fouls your blood & spiritually eviscerates you to the point you cannot pray, lest your prayers be a concession to your conviction that you're about to die, you know what I am talking about. If you do not have the option of either fleeing or attacking your adversary, your level of fear will grow to the point where you feel like your skin is being stripped from your bones. — James Lee Burke

It is unquestionably foolish to begin a battle when you don't know the full strength of your adversary. — Claire Kent

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

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

He who has not lived in the eighteenth century before the Revolution does not know the sweetness of life and can not imagine that there can be happiness in life. This is the century that has shaped all the conquering arms against this elusive adversary called boredom. Love, Poetry, Music, Theatre, Painting, Architecture, Court, Salons, Parks and Gardens, Gastronomy, Letters, Arts, Science, all contributed to the satisfaction of physical appetites, intellectual and even moral refinement of all pleasures, all the elegance and all the pleasures. The existence was so well filled that if the seventeenth century was the Great Age of glories, the eighteenth was that of indigestion. — Charles Maurice De Talleyrand-Perigord

I do not know of any environmental group in any country that does not view its government as an adversary. — Gro Harlem Brundtland

Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought. — Martin Heidegger

Thinking only begins at the point where we have come to know that Reason, glorified for centuries, is the most obstinate adversary of thinking. — Martin Heidegger

But if you're not knowledgeable in God's Word, you have nothing to fight with, and the only way to arm yourself against evil and the adversary is to know His Word and use it! — K.J. Masters

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

I know as well as any one, [the devil] is an adversary, whom if we resist, he will fly from us
but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror, that though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat
soinstead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself. — Laurence Sterne

Apropos of Eskimo, I once heard a missionary describe the extraordinary difficulty he had found in translating the Bible into Eskimo. It was useless to talk of corn or wine to a people who did not know even what they meant, so he had to use equivalents within their powers of comprehension. Thus in the Eskimo version of the Scriptures the miracle of Cana of Galilee is described as turning the water into blubber; the 8th verse of the 5th chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter ran: 'Your adversary the devil, as a roaring Polar bear walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.' In the same way 'A land flowing with milk and honey' became 'A land flowing with whale's blubber,' and throughout the New Testament the words 'Lamb of God' had to be translated 'little Seal of God,' as the nearest possible equivalent. The missionary added that his converts had the lowest opinion of Jonah for not having utilised his exceptional opportunities by killing and eating the whale. — Frederick Hamilton

He stared down at the golden curls of the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.
"You know," he concluded, after a while, "I think he actually looks like an Adam. — Neil Gaiman

It's good to know certain things:
What's departed, in order to know what's left to come;
That water's immeasurable and incomprehensible
And blows in the air
Where all that's fallen and silent becomes invisible;
That fire's the light our names are carved in.
That shame is a garment of sorrow;
That time is the Adversary, and stays sleepless and wants for nothing;
That clouds are unequal and words are. — Charles Wright

I am looking for the human who admits his flaws
Who shocks the adversary
By being kinder not stronger
What would that be like?
We don't even know — Naomi Shihab Nye

Everything in war hinges on what you know of your adversary's skills and asset. — Marie Rutkoski

It's who I am. I can't just pretend to be some normal kid. That won't work either. They'll never leave me alone. But here's what I know: a block is a strike, and the more an adversary thinks he has succeeded, the more devastating the strike will be. — Jacques Antoine

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

Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know we can thoroughly depend, who will stand firm when others fail; the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and chivalrous,-in such a one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages. — Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

I must say a word about fear. It's is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. it begins in your mind, always. — Yann Martel

Upon my word," cried my adversary, annoyed, "if you did not want to fight, why did not you let me alone?" "Yesterday I was a fool, to-day I know better," I answered him gayly. "As to yesterday, I believe you, but as for to-day, it is difficult to agree with your opinion,"said he. "Bravo," I cried, clapping my hands. "I agree with you there too. I have deserved it! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. — Yann Martel

Murder me with bombs you poor lonely sod I will only build myself again and stronger. I am too stupid to know better I am a woman built on the wreckage of myself. — Chris Cleave

Know my name is lost, By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit; Yet am I noble as the adversary I come to cope. — William Shakespeare

Winston Churchill once said, "If you want to destroy them, distract them." And that's exactly what our adversary does; he distracts us completely from the greater cause, which is to pull together so we might know Christ and make Him known. Second — Darlene Zschech

Every soul confined in a prison of sin, guilt, or perversion has a key to the gate. The key is labeled "repentance." If you know how to use this key, the adversary cannot hold you. — Boyd K. Packer

Before the battle begins and the outcome has been decided, let the adversary know that you are a fearless competitor, worthy of a second opinion. — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.