Mikhail Lermontov Quotes

My enemies are everywhere. And sometimes, those we least suspect turn out to be our biggest threats.

Don't forgive and never forget; Do unto others before they do unto you; and third and most importantly, keep your eye on your friends, because your enemies will take care of themselves!

The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

One never really knows who one's enemy is.

All warfare is based on deception.

Treat your friends as if they were going to be your enemies one day.

We may employ artifice to deceive a rival, anything against our enemies.

I don't like intrigue. I'm not a man of intrigue.

Sweetheart, never listen to what my enemies say. They're very confused people. I know they are because I've spent years making them that way.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.

Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition, but the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency.

The tent in which she first met him had smelled of blood, of the death she did not understand, and still she had thought of it all as a game. She had promised him the world. His flesh in the flesh of his enemies. And much too late had she realized what he had sown in her. Love. Worst of all poisons.

Believe flatterers and you're lost; believe your enemies and you despair.

Station is the paradox of the world of my people, the limitation of our power within the hunger for power. It is gained through treachery and invites treachery against those who gain it. Those most powerful in Menzoberranzan spend their days watching over their shoulders, defending against the daggers that would find their backs. Their deaths usually come from the front." -Drizzt Do'Urden

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of the truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to help him organize it."

Worse than thieves, murderers, or cannibals, those who offer compromise slow you and sap your vitality while pretending to be your friends. They are not your friends. Compromisers are the enemies of all humanity, the enemies of life itself. Compromisers are the enemies of everything important, sacred, and true.

Machination is worth more than force.

One may outwit another, but not all the others.

The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers.

The best way to weaken one's enemy was to get him to believe that you were on his side.

The best way to know and destroy an enemy is to pretend to become his friend.

Yes, to me that's one of the most compelling fears in film noir and the psychological thriller genre - that fear of conspiracy. It's definitely something that I have a fear of - not being in control of your own life. I think that's something people can relate to, and those genres are most successful when they derive the material from genuine fears that people have.

The daily employment of cunning marks a little mind, it generally happens that those who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves lay themselves open to attack in another.

The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.