“A man with no enemies is a man with no character.”

— Paul Newman

Quoted in Paul Newman: A Life in Pictures, ed. Yann-Brice Dherbier and Pierre-Henri Verlhac (2006), p. 120
As quoted in Words of Wisdom : From the Greatest Minds of All Time (2004) by Mick Farren
Variant: If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Paul Newman 38

American actor and film director 1925–2008

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Jesus or Christianity: A Study in Contrasts (1929), p. 23
Context: It seems incredible that a man with such a message and such nobility of character should have been killed as an enemy of society. But is it surprising?... In a memorable passage Jesus refers to the fact that it is customary for one generation to stone the prophets and for another to erect monuments in their honor.

“Anything that deprives a man of real life is an enemy to that man.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 83-84
Context: Anything that deprives a man of real life is an enemy to that man. If real life is relationship, the dwelling on friendly and affectionate terms with God and man, then anything that separates us from God, from our better selves, and from our fellows, is an enemy. Another name for this enemy is sin. It is sin that wrecks the characters of men and deprives them of their spiritual heritage. Sin is the most subtle, treacherous, and deadly of all foes. It is the destroyer of real life.

“I am the white woman character, black woman character. I am the black man character, the white man character…I have to stand in that person’s shoes.”

Suzan-Lori Parks (1963) American writer

On embodying every one of her characters in “Pulitzer Prize Winner Suzan-Lori Parks Questions ‘Woke-ness’ With Her Latest Off-Broadway Play” http://www.playbill.com/article/pulitzer-prize-winner-suzan-lori-parks-questions-woke-ness-with-her-latest-off-broadway-play in Playbill (2019 Mar 1)

“Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.7 Conclusion
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)
Context: Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such governments; and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.

“Whatever a man wants badly and persistently enough will determine the man's character.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

Source: The Root of the Righteous (1955), p. 116.

“The true enemy of man is generalization.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Source: Testimony to the Invisible: Essays on Swedenborg

“Character, not circumstances, makes the man.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

"Democracy and Education" http://web.archive.org/20071031084046/www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.4/html/222.html, speech, Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn NY (30 September 1896)

“He (Mike Pence) is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the right man for the job.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

“The truly civilized man has no enemies.”

Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer

The Smoke and the Flame: A Study in the Development of Religion (1902).

“Two enemies — the same man divided.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“A man with no enemies is a man with no character.”

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Paul Newman 38

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