“Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity…”

— William Blake

Frontiespiece, plate 1, line 8 (as it seen on the additional plate, Fitzwilliam Museum).
1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820)

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

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William Blake249

English Romantic poet and artist 1757–1827

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“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”

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“There is an old saying which, from its truth, has become proverbial, that friendships should be immortal, enmities mortal.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

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“There are three classes of friendship and enmity, since men are so disposed to one another either by preference or by need or through pleasure and pain.”

Ptolemy (100–170) Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer of Alexandria

Book IV, sec. 7
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“This is indeed a maxim of general application…Nations cannot be governed by the obligations of friendship which prevail among individuals in private life…There can be, in the eyes of a philosophical statesman neither national enmities, nor national friendships.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Palmerston (9 October 1833), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 284.
1830s

“Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart.”
Ambitio multos mortales falsos fieri subegit, aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere, amicitias inimicitiasque non ex re, sed ex commodo aestimare, magisque vultum quam ingenium bonum habere.

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

Variant translation: It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter X, section 5

“It was astonishing how quickly friendship could turn to enmity, she thought, like a compass needle swinging from one pole to the other.
They’d been excellent friends. They’d make excellent enemies as well.”

Alastair Reynolds book Pushing Ice

Source: Pushing Ice (2005), Chapter 8 (p. 132)

“It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, X, 5. This particular translation of the original Latin is from the essay "On Liberty" by Abraham Cowley: "Sallust, therefore, who was well acquainted with them both and with many such-like gentlemen of his time, says, 'That it is the nature of ambition' (Ambitio multos mortales falsos fieri coegit, etc.) 'to make men liars and cheaters; to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths; to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.'" http://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02/cowes10.txt The Wikiquote page for Sallust has the quote and a different translation. <br class="br">Misattributed

“Hello, companion," said Magnus.

The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss.

"I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship," said Magnus.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Magnus Bane to a monkey in 1791, p. 12.
Source: The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)
Context: He paused and admired the bromeliads, huge iridescent flower-like bowls made out of petals, shimmering with color and water. There were frogs inside the jewel-bright recesses of the flowers.
Then he looked up into the round brown eyes of a monkey.
'Hello, companion,' said Magnus.
The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss.
'I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship,' said Magnus.

“Nature … has born and reared all men alike, and created them genuine brothers, not in mere name, but in very reality, though this kinship has been put to confusion by the triumph of malignant covetousness, which has wrought estrangement instead of affinity and enmity instead of friendship.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

79.
Every Good Man is Free

“No wearisome days, no sorrowful nights; no hunger or thirst; no anxiety or fears; no envies, no jealousies, no breaches of friendship, no sad separations, no distrusts or forebodings, no self-reproaches, no enmities, no bitter regrets, no tears, no heartaches; "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 300.

“Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity…”

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William Blake249

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