Ibn Taymiyyah, Diseases of the heart and their cures https://www.amazon.com/Diseases-Hearts-Their-Cures-Taymiyyah/dp/0953647633
“Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.”
Variation: Defend me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies myself The quote has been attributed to Voltaire, who was using it after Villars. Quoted in Connie Robertson, Dictionary of Quotations, 1998
Source: The 48 Laws of Power
Suscipe prayer of Saint Ignatius
“Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.”
Garantissez-moi de mes amis, écrivait Gourville proscrit et fugitif, je saurai me défendre de mes ennemis. ("Defend me from my friends," wrote Gourville, exile and fugitive, "I can defend myself from my enemies.") — Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan, Considérations sur l'esprit et les moeurs (1788): "De L'Amitié." Sénac de Meilhan was quoting Jean Hérault, sieur de Gourville (1625 - 1703).
The remark has often been attributed to Voltaire and to Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars.
Misattributed
The Poet's Testament http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poet-s-testament/
Other works
“I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends!”
In response to George Henry Lewes (LL, II, v, 272); Miriam Farris Allott (1974), The Brontës, the critical heritage, page 160;
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 591.
“What a childhood I had. My mother never breast-fed me. She said she liked me as a friend.”
Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 19
“My old man never liked me. He gave me my allowance in traveler's checks.”
Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 13
