Lao Tzu Quotes

I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies.

Enmity immediately tumbles away when one side lets it fall.

I always struggled with the idea of forgiving my enemies.

We only make peace with our enemies. That's why it's called making peace.

It is the acid test of nonviolence that in a nonviolent conflict there is no rancor left behind, and in the end the enemies are converted into friends.

One doesn't make peace with one's friends. One makes peace with one's enemies.

There's a lot of bitterness, there's a lot of anger out there. We all have to work hard to heal those wounds.

Sadat was a great and good man, and his most bitter and dangerous enemies were people who were obsessed with hatred for his peaceful goals.

If you're an enemy, I would love for you to be a fan, because I don't like enemies.

There has been enough blood in the Balkans. Serbia is offering its hand. Let us turn to the future and not deal with the past.

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

A close friend can become a close enemy.

It takes years to turn enmity to amity.

A democracy is peace-loving. It does not like to go to war. It is slow to rise to provocation. When it has once been provoked to the point where it must grasp the sword, it does not easily forgive its adversary for having produced this situation. The fact of the provocation then becomes itself the issue. Democracy fights in anger — it fights for the very reason that it was forced to go to war. It fights to punish the power that was rash enough and hostile enough to provoke it — to teach that power a lesson it will not forget, to prevent the thing from happening again. Such a war must be carried to the bitter end.

On both sides, all should be forever forgotten and forgiven—what has from the beginning of the unrest, no matter how or where, from one side or the other, happened in terms of hostility

Forgiveness is better than revenge

I will negotiate with my worst enemy.

To my mind, it is better to have regrets about the good aspects of your former marriage because you were able to work past some of your accumulated resentments than to have no regrets because you had to ratchet up the hostility to get out in the first place.

I have not one shred of anger in my heart against Netanyahu or his wife.

Forgiving is one of the most difficult things for a human being to do, but I think it means looking at some slight you feel, putting yourself in the position of the other person, and wiping away any sort of resentment and antagonism you feel toward them. Then let that other person know that everything is perfectly friendly and normal between you.

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

No greater victory can be won by citizens or soldiers than to transform temporary foes into permanent friends.

Let the enemies of life step down.

I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies. I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another. I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.

It is certainly impossible to imagine forgiving the enemy while their animus remains undefeated.