“We may be opponents but we are not enemies. We are americans.”

—  Joe Biden

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDmTJXtfiKM

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We may be opponents but we are not enemies. We are americans." by Joe Biden?
Joe Biden photo
Joe Biden 187
47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 20… 1942

Related quotes

Joe Biden photo

“To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiLR4sCgvnc
Context: But now, let’s give each other a chance.
It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric.
To lower the temperature.
To see each other again.
To listen to each other again.
To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.
We are not enemies. We are Americans.

Dave Barry photo

“We must always remember that, as Americans, we all have a common enemy -- an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Washington Post December 19, 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A218-2004Dec14.html (Second Source: A video of Dave Barry reacting to a university response to this quote) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3REvTJjXU,
Columns and articles

Nikolai Bukharin photo

“We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion.”

Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938) Soviet politician

Programme of the World Revolution (1918), Ch. VII http://marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1918/worldrev/ch07.html

Wilhelm Liebknecht photo

“We dare not do all that our opponents do. We dare not sacrifice everything for advantages. For what is an advantage to our opponents is deadly poison to us. The nobility say of themselves, noblesse oblige; so we may say, socialisme oblige, socialism imposes its obligations.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“Nothing is easier - or more gratifying - than to apologise for what your ancestors, enemies or political opponents have done or omitted to do. We get the kudos for having apologised, they get the blame for what we apologise for.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Migration: Multiculturalism and its Metaphors (2016)

Mao Zedong photo

“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

A Single Spark Can Start A Prairie Fire https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_6.htm (1930)
He later wrote the similar quote "When guerrillas engage a stronger enemy, they withdraw when he advances; harass him when he stops; strike him when he is weary; pursue him when he withdraws." On Guerrilla Warfare https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch01.htm (1937), Chapter 1 - "What Is Guerrilla Warfare?"

Cardinal Richelieu photo

“We may employ artifice to deceive a rival, anything against our enemies.”

Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) French clergyman, noble and statesman

Pour tromper un rival l'artifice est permis; on peut tout employer contres ses ennemis.
As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood
Variant translation: To mislead a rival, deception is permissible; one may use all means against his enemies.

Gustav Stresemann photo

“We must become so strong and must so ruthlessly weaken our opponents that no enemy will ever dare to attack us again. To achieve this a modification of frontiers in the west as in the east is essential.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech at a joint meeting of the National Liberal Party and the National Liberal Central Committee (15 July 1915), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 274
1910s

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we in the twentieth century hear and follow his words-before it is too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Ben Carson photo

“I want people to understand that we, the American people, are not each other's enemies. The real enemies are those people who are trying to divide us into every little possible group.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

"Dr. Ben Carson: ‘We, The American People, Are Not Each Other’s Enemies’" http://www.cnsnews.com/video/newsbusters/dr-ben-carson-we-american-people-are-not-each-other-s-enemies, CNS News (May 21, 2014)

Related topics