35 Compelling Friends and Enemies Quotes

Sometimes we’re so focused on our enemies, we forget to watch our friends.M, Casino Royale

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.Michael Corleone, The Godfather: Part II

Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.Walter E. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

Keep your friends rich, and your enemies rich, and wait to find out which is which.Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron

Enemies see each other better than friends.Clifford Ellison, American Fiction

When you can’t tell your friends from your enemies, it’s time to go.M, (to James), Quantum of Solace

A wise man can learn more from his enemies than a fool from his friends.Niki Lauda, Rush (2013)

If there’s anything I admire more than a dedicated friend, it is a dedicated enemy.Major Henry Terrill, The Big Country (1958)

I’d rather have an intelligent enemy than a stupid friend.David Siqueiros, Frida (2002)

There’s the right man’s best friend and the wrong man’s worst enemy.Lieutenant Danny Roman, The Negotiator (1998)

I choose my friends for their looks, my enemies for their intelligence.Alfredo, Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Friends make the worst enemies.Francis Underwood, House of Cards, S1.Ep5: Chapter 5

We can’t be so worried about finding enemies that we lose our friends.Gabriel Stokes, The Walking Dead, S9.Ep12: Guardians

The best way to defeat an enemy is to make him a friend.Brianna Randall, Outlander, S7.Ep2: The Happiest Place on Earth

Perhaps it’s not our friends but… our enemies that define us.Oswald Cobblepot, Gotham, S1.Ep17: Red Hood

I never lose sleep over my enemies. It’s my friends that keep me awake.Carmine Falcone, Gotham, S1.Ep2: Selina Kyle

Enemies are everywhere and friends nowhere. To show your true heart is to risk your life.Toda Mariko, (to John), Shogun, S1.Ep3: Tomorrow Is Tomorrow

A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults.Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969)

It is often the case that one learns more about a person from their enemies than from their friends.Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1997)

To be successful, you need friends. To be very successful, you need enemies.Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight (1973)

One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932), (Modern Library, ed. 1956), Chapter 12, Page 214

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), (Modern Library, ed. 1917), Page 82

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1987), Chapter XLV, Page 410

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), (ed. Macmillan, 1904), Page 49

One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella (June 30, 1711)

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.Moshe Dayan, As quoted in Newsweek (October 17, 1977)

You shall read that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends.Francis Bacon, The Essays Or Counsels, Civil and Moral (1597), (ed. Homewood Co., 1883), Page 29

In life it is difficult to say who do you the most mischief, enemies with the worst intentions, or friends with the best.Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton (1850), Volume IV, Page 441

Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.Jean Cocteau, Diary of an Unknown (1988), Page 209

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies – seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, Or, Many Things in Few Words (1820), (ed. E. Kearny, 1836) Page 158

If you would keep your Secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard (1741)

I no doubt deserved my enemies but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.Walt Whitman, Century Club, 109 East 15th St., (New York July 22, 1888)

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.Jayne Ann Krentz, In Too Deep (2011), Page 158

Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offences.Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), (ed. George Bell & Sons, 1903), Volume I, Page 69