“We must know our enemy, at least a little.”
Greg Bear book Hardfought
“That’s dangerous,” Prufrax said, almost instinctively.
“Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate.”
Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 63
Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 63
“We must know our enemy, at least a little.”
Greg Bear book Hardfought
“That’s dangerous,” Prufrax said, almost instinctively.
“Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate.”
Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 63
K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 219)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does to the person hated. This is understandable, for hate bring irreparable damage to its victims. We have seen its ugly consequences in the ignominious deaths brought to six million Jews by a hate-obsessed madman named Hitler, in the unspeakable violence inflicted upon Negroes by blood-thirsty mobs, in the dark horrors of war, and in the terrible indignities and injustices perpetrated against millions of God's children by unconscionable oppressors.
But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
This is sometimes attributed to Sun Tzu in combination with the above quote, as well as alone, but it too has not been sourced to any published translation of The Art of War, though it is similar in concept to his famous statement in Ch. 3 : "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles..."
Misattributed
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
Variant translations
If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know not thy enemy nor yourself, wallow in defeat every time.
Literal translation: Know [the] other, know [the] self, hundred battles without danger; not knowing [the] other but know [the] self, one win one loss; not knowing [the] other, not knowing [the] self, every battle must [be] lost.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
“You cannot defeat your enemies until you know who they are.”
Anthony Horowitz book Crocodile Tears
Source: Crocodile Tears
Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle
Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 9 (p. 300) — from the protagonist’s major speech.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)