Near Enemies Quotes

I'm helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are "near enemies" to every great virtue - reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can't possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a "pathological empathy" of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can't help but stay present ~ Krista Tippett

When your enemy is tough make your actions rough, you will meet at the same point. ~ Auliq Ice

On my best days, such as when I was a junior in high school coming off a 42-point performance and near triple-double, my dad was there to tell me I haven't arrived yet and bring me back to reality. ~ Candace Parker

Voters have soaked up a noggin full of negativity over the last twenty years, with an economy we had to bring back from collapse, plus terrorist attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't want to belabor these points, but your listeners know what I'm talking about. I think the antidote is to appreciate what we have, enjoy where we live, and make a positive contribution to our communities. My Cracker Pride campaign is balanced by the spirit of Cincinnatus. He was a farmer and Roman general who was twice made dictator. And he had the forbearance to resign as dictator as soon as he had vanquished Rome's enemies. He became a civic ideal for good leadership. That's the spirit I want in my district and in my campaign. - Veda Rabadel, The Tea & Crackers Campaign. ~ Peter Prasad

If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you - the Mystery. The one that can never be solved. ~ Tom Robbins

There's no point in bragging in the good times. Your friends don't need to hear it and your enemies won't believe it anyway. ~ Paul Orfalea

Big fucking mistake man. You can't be near her. Don't you get it? [ ... ] She's part of this city. Do you see? I mean, really part of it. You hurt her, you - hurt all of this. ~ Christopher Fowler

Not long after he and Margaret were married, he'd complimented her on a pot of yellow blossoms near the front door. She'd laughed, and blushed, and then confessed that weeks earlier, watching him walk around the vegetable garden, she'd slipped out, dug up a brick-sized clump of earth which held the clear impression of his right foot, and tucked it into the flower pot. In that earth she'd planted a chrysanthemum, hoping that as it bloomed year after year so would his love for her. How should he marry again, after that? ~ Andrea Barrett

After the battle was finished and the enemy was set beyond the doors of stone, survivors found Lanre's body, cold and lifeless near the beast he had slain. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

The Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly said that America is not at war with Islam. And Republicans need to be vocal about condemning anyone, in America or abroad, who seeks to lump all Muslims together as America's enemies. America is not at war with Islam, and Republicans must continue to follow President Bush's example in condemning any expressions of prejudice against Muslims. ~ Margaret Hoover

They all stood unwilling on the sandbar, holding to the net. In the eastern sky were the familiar castles and the round towers to which they were used, gray, pink, and blue, growing darker and filling with thunder. Lightning flickered in the sun along their thick walls. But in the west the sun shone with such a violence that in an illumination like a long-prolonged glare of lightning the heavens looked black and white; all color left the world, the goldenness of everything was like a memory, and only heat, a kind of glamor and oppression, lay on their heads. The thick heavy trees on the other side of the river were brushed with mile-long streaks of silver, and a wind touched each man on the forehead. At the same time there was a long roll of thunder that began behind them, came up and down mountains and valleys of air, passed over their heads, and left them listening still. With a small, near noise a mockingbird followed it, the little white bars of its body flashing over the willow trees.

'We are here for a storm now,' Virgil said. 'We will have to stay till it's over.'

("The Wide Net") ~ Eudora Welty

This is best thing about being manly: it's so easy to fake. Smear some oil on your face, or nod and say "Aaah" near mechanics. ~ Danny Wallace

From 1945 to 1991, China was engaged in a series of wars that nearly broke them. This generation has been through hell: the Great Leap Forward, hunger, starvation, near collision with the Russians - the Cultural Revolution gone mad. I have no doubt that this generation wants a peaceful rise. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Use your energy to love your friends rather than hate your enemies. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Do ye really love him, Trulie? Does yer love for him make yer throat ache with tears if ye canna be near him? Do ye pine to hear the rumble of his deep voice whisper yer name in the darkness?"
Granny stomped forward another step. Her voice grew shriller with every word. "Say it, Trulie. Tell me the truth. If ye thought ye'd ne'er see Dan again, would ye rather die than live a day without him? Tell me. Tell me Dan is the other half of yer soul and I will ne'er talk about jumping back again. ~ Maeve Greyson

We just had a near-life experience! ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Peace with non-fundamentalists terrifies the fundamentalist because to them, being Christian doesn't mean just being 'good' - it means being 'better' than others. Being better that others means having to see them as enemies - and making war on them. The fundamentalist views not being allowed to make war on their enemies as oppression of their faith, or defeat. ~ Christina Engela

But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. ~ Andre Aciman

Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential. ~ Brian Tracy

Lyndon Johnson was a master of self-justification. According to his biographer Robert Caro, when Johnson came to believe in something, he would believe in it "totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter." George Reedy, one of Johnson's aides, said that he "had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It was not an act… He had a fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the 'truth' which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of enemies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality." Although Johnson's supporters found this to be a rather charming aspect of the man's character, it might well have been one of the major reasons that Johnson could not extricate the country from the quagmire of Vietnam. A president who justifies his actions only to the public might be induced to change them. A president who has justified his actions to himself, believing that he has the truth, becomes impervious to self-correction. ~ Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson

People would get up and leave so they would not have to sit anywhere near me. ~ Ryan White

I'm officially near-famous. If you've got four year old kids and you've got cable, then you've got no choice but to know who I am. But if you're one of my peers - a 26-year old guy who lives in Manhattan - you have no idea who I am. I'm only famous if you're four. ~ Steve Burns

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from citizens. ~ Baruch Spinoza

One early terracotta statuette from Catal Huyuk in Anatolia depicts an enthroned female in the act of giving birth, supported by two cat-like animals that form her seat (Plate 1). This figure has been identified as a 'birth goddess' and it is this type of early image that has led a number of feminist scholars to posit a 'reign of the goddess' in ancient Near Eastern prehistory. Maria Gimbutas, for whom such images are proof of a perfect matriarchal society in 'Old Europe' , presents an ideal vision in which a socially egalitarian matriarchal culture was overthrown by a destructive patriarchy (Gimbutas 1991). Gerda Lerner has argued for a similar situation in the ancient Near East; however, she does not discuss nude figurines at any length (Lerner 1986a: 147). More recently, critiques of the matriarchal model of prehistory have pointed out the flaws in this methodology (e.g. Conkey and Tringham 1995; Meskell 1995; Goodison and Morris 1998). In all these critiques the identification of such figures as goddesses is rejected as a modern myth. There is no archaeological evidence that these ancient communities were in fact matriarchal, nor is there any evidence that female deities were worshipped exclusively. Male gods may have worshipped simultaneously with the 'mother goddesses' if such images are indeed representations of deities. Nor do such female figures glorify or show admiration for the female body; rather they essentialise it, reducing it to nothing more nor less than a re ~ Zainab Bahrani

In general, fire is used to throw enemies into confusion so that you can attack them. ~ Du Mu

Your powers are what you always have with you. It's one piece of knowledge we all share here. No matter how many dossiers the government keeps on you, no matter what data your enemies have collected, no one knows your powers the way you do. Everyone has seen them on TV. For everyone else, it's a momentary fantasy. They don't have to take them into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Or wake up in the night in flames, or sweep up shattered glass in their apartment, or show up late for work with a black eye. No one else knows where they itch or bruise you, or has tried the things you've tried with them when you were bored or desperate. No one else falls asleep with them and finds them still there in the morning, a dream that won't disperse upon waking. ~ Austin Grossman

Every man's his own friend, my dear," replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. "He hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere."
Except sometimes," replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. "Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know."
Don't believe that!" said the Jew. "When a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself. Pooh! Pooh! There ain't such a thing in nature. ~ Charles Dickens

March is a month of considerable frustration - it is so near spring and yet across a great deal of the country the weather is still so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away. ~ Thalassa Cruso

To his sister-in-law: What a contrast between us! You live a warm and glowing life, surrounded by loved ones whom you care for and who care for you; you are anchored in contentment. I drift about without rudder or compass, a wreck on the sea of life; I have no memories to cheer me, no pleasant illusions of the future to comfort me, or about me to satisfy my vanity. I have no family to furnish the only kind of survival that concerns us, no friends for the wholesome development of my affections, or enemies for my malice. ~ Alfred Nobel

What's foreign one can't always keep quite clear of,
For good things, oft, are not so near;
A German can't endure the French to see or hear of,
Yet drinks their wines with hearty cheer. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Life is too short to have enemies, all you should have is friends! ~ Sathish Krishnamurthy

The enemies inside us: Indifference, Indecision, Doubt, Worry, and Over-caution. ~ Jim Rohn

Do you trust me, Pidge?"
"Yeah, why?"
"C'mere," he said, pulling me against him. I stiffened for a second or two before resting my head on his chest. Whatever was going on with him, he needed me near him, and I couldn't have objected even if I'd wanted to. It felt right lying next to him. ~ Jamie McGuire

We walked hand in hand toward the diner, until Ivy froze in her steps. 'What's wrong?' I asked, skimming the area around us, looking for some kind of threat. She made a sound of panic. 'Ivy?' My heart was starting to beat faster. 'I'm still wearing your shirt!' She hissed. 'Is that all, woman? Please.' I started walking again. She refused to budge. I turned back and lifted and eyebrow. 'What now?' She stepped up close and whispered dramatically, 'I'm not wearing a bra either!' I matched her tone to whisper back, 'Good thing the girls are perky!' 'Braeden!' She gasped. I threw back my head and laughed. 'C'mon. I'm so hungry I could eat the rotten end of a pig.' 'Oh my gosh, that's disgusting!' she burst out as I towed her along behind me. 'Awe, baby. That hurts my feelings.' She made a rude noise, and I grinned. I opened the door to the diner, and she walked in first. I had to hold back a smile when she crossed her arms over her unleashed girls. This chick was fucking hilarious. Rimmel waved wildly from a booth near the window. Ivy hurried to the table and slid in across from Romeo and Rimmel. I followed with a lot less hurry in my step and slid in right next to Ivy. Romeo looked at Ivy, then at me. We exchanged a look. He held out his fist to pound it out. I obliged. 'About damn time,' he grunted. Then he glanced at Rimmel, who had her hair piled on the top of her head and a pencil sticking out of the mess. 'Can we order now, smalls? I'm so hungry I could eat the ass out of a ~ Cambria Hebert