Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

As long as you hate your enemy, a jail door is closed and a prisoner is taken. But when you try to understand and release your foe from your hatred, then the prisoner is released and that prisoner is you.

You have to see the human being in the enemy. If there is potential for change, there is still hope.

By intensity of hatred, nations create in themselves the character that they imagine in their enemies. Hence it comes that all passionate conflicts result in an interchange of characteristics. We might say with truth, those who hate open a door by which their enemies enter and make their own the secret places of the heart.

The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.

Getting to the pint where the other is not the enemy is a big leap.

I think we might well ask: How does one destroy his enemy by becoming like him?

We demonize our enemies at our own peril.

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.

Love is a rare herb that makes a friend even of a sworn enemy and this herb grows out of nonviolence.

If you have an enemy, do not requite him evil with good, for that would put him to shame. Rather prove that he did you some good.

I do think it is harder to acknowledge our strengths, or to forgive ourselves and each other for our shortcomings, when there has not been a result we can all agree on. And it is certainly impossible to imagine forgiving the enemy while their animus remains undefeated. Yet war doesn't end with armistice, it only ends with forgiveness and reconciliation.

Love your enemy. But don't forget he is not your friend

My freedom from hatred - I would even claim for myself individually, my love - for those who consider themselves to be my enemies, does not make me blind to their faults.

The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.

Every word and deed must contribute to an understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of goodwill which have been blocked by impenetrable walls of hate.

An enemy to whom you show kindness becomes your friend.

We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them.

I find that forgiving one's enemies is a most curious morbid pleasure; perhaps I should check it.

If you treat people with dignity, respect and friendliness, you can turn enemies into friends. An enemy is nothing but a friend in disguise.

By humility, out of an enemy He has made a friend, which is more than to have created a new earth.

To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.

If appeasing our enemies is not the answer, neither is hating them.... Somewhere between the extremes of appeasement and hate there is a place for courage and strength to express themselves in magnanimity and charity, and this is the place we must find.

Love your enemy. It will not only puzzle him, But finally illumine him.