Sermon quotes on enemies
Karl Barth
The Easter message tells us that our enemies—sin, the curse, and death—are beaten. Ultimately they can longer start mischief. The still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them any more.
Church Dogmatics
F.F. Bruce
The best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend.
D.A. Carson
[Christians] are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.
G.K. Chesterton
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
G.K. Chesterton
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbor.
Winston Churchill (attributed)
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
(Not actually a Churchill quote. It roughly paraphrases an 1845 quote from Victor Hugo.)
Dorothy Day
We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.
“Love Is the Measure,” Catholic Worker, June 2, 1946.
Jonathan Edwards
I make it my rule, to lay hold of light and embrace it, wherever I see it, though held forth by a child or an enemy.
Thomas Fuller
Nature teaches us to love our friends, but religion our enemies.
Joseph Hall
A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men to their friends.
George Herbert
Pursue not a victory too far. He hath conquered well that hath made his enemy fly; thou mayest beat him to a desperate resistance, which may ruin thee.
Victor Hugo
You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity.
Martin Luther King Jr.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King Jr.
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Agape is disinterested love. Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both.
Woodrow Kroll
Cherish your enemies; they may be blessings in disguise.
Abraham Lincoln
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
Isaac Newton
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
John Newton
Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies, the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
Frank Sinatra
Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.
Charles Spurgeon
Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
Theophan the Recluse
The invincible weapon against all our enemies is humility.
Warren Wiersbe
We may not be able to prevent other people from being our enemies, but we can prevent ourselves from being enemies toward others.
Quaker Saying
An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.
Jonathan Edwards
I make it my rule, to lay hold of light and embrace it, wherever I see it, though held forth by a child or an enemy
Anne Lamott
You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (New York: Anchor, 2019)
Bob Goff
Jesus said to love our enemies. I thought I’d get off easy because I don’t have any real “enemies.” I mean, I’m not mad at North Korea or Russia or China. And I don’t think they’re mad at me. After all, I wrote a book and put balloons on the cover. Who could be mad at that guy? I think Jesus meant something different when He said “enemies.” He meant we should love the people we don’t understand. The ones we disagree with. The ones who are flat wrong about more than a couple of things. I have plenty of those people in my life, and my bet is you do too. In fact, I might be one of those people sometimes.
Victor Hugo
You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
“Villemain” in Things Seen and Essays (Wildside, 2008).
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