“An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes." by Thomas Jefferson?

Thomas Jefferson456

3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826

Related quotes

“I do not believe he believes what he is saying.”

Jerry Brown (1938) American politician/lawyer and current governor of California

John Emerson, New York Times, unspecified article/page, 2 April 1992.

“No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Our Theatres In The Nineties (1930)
1930s

“It becomes so easy to believe what one wishes to believe.”

Michael Moorcock book The King of the Swords

Source: Book 2, Chapter 2 “The Castle Built of Blood” (p. 320), Corum, The King of the Swords (1971)

“May we not say, perhaps, that the evil man is annihilated because he wished to be annihilated, or that he did not wish strongly enough to eternalize himself because he was evil? May we say that it is not believing in the other life which causes a man to be good, but rather that being good causes him believe in it? And what is being good and being evil? These states belong to the sphere of ethics, not of religion; or rather, does not the doing good though being evil pertain to ethics, and the being good [forgivable] though doing evil, to religion?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis

“Some deaths a man can enjoy, the death of an enemy, and Sharpe was paid to have enemies. Yet he did not wish death on the French. There was more satisfaction in seeing a surrendered enemy, a defeated enemy, than in seeing a slaughtered enemy.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 304
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“The easiest thing in the world is self-deceit; for every man believes what he wishes, though the reality is often different.”

Démosthenés (-384–-322 BC) ancient greek statesman and orator

Third Olynthiac http://books.google.com/books?id=n4INAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;the+easiest+thing+in+the+world+is+self-deceit+for+every+man+believes+what+he+wishes+though+the+reality+is+often+different&quot;&pg=PA57#v=onepage, section 19 (349 BC), as translated by Charles Rann Kennedy (1852) <br class="br">Variants: <br class="br">A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true. <br class="br">As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 255 <br class="br">There is nothing easier than self-delusion. Since what man desires, is the first thing he believes.

“As long as the enemy fights he must be beaten relentlessly, but a defeated enemy and especially the civilian population must be treated generously.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

Yesterday and Today, 1917-1967: Contemporaries Report on the Progress of German Soviet Friendship - Page 105 - by Verlag Zeit im Bild - Soviet Union - 1967.

“What the enemy believed of you was probably true, or else why were you enemies in the first place?”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Part Eight “The Return”, Chapter v “Nonesuch”, Section 2 (p. 353)
(1987), BOOK TWO: THE FUGUE

“Did Stanton say I was a damned fool? Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in Lincoln; An Account of his Personal Life, Especially of its Springs of Action as Revealed and Deepened by the Ordeal of War (1922) by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson.
1860s

“The Germans also attempted to muddle the issue. They composed fables and wrote on their lists that the Soviet generals had voluntarily deserted to the enemy side. None of us believed this. We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy.”

Sergei Biriuzov (1904–1964) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "Fallen Soviet Generals: Soviet General Officers Killed in Battle" - Page 198 - by Aleksander A. Maslov, David M. Glantz - 1998

“An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Thomas Jefferson456

Related quotes

Related topics