Quotes about conflict

Success has made failures of many men.

— Cindy Adams

More will mean worse.

— Martin Amis

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

— Marian Anderson

The term up has no meaning apart from the word down. The term fast has no meaning apart from the term slow. In addition such terms have no meaning even when used together, except when confined to a very particular situation... most of our language about the organization and objective's of government is made up of such polar terms. Justice and injustice are typical. A reformer who wants to abolish injustice and create a world in which nothing but justice prevails is like a man who wants to make everything up. Such a man might feel that if he took the lowest in the world and carried it up to the highest point and kept on doing this, everything would eventually become up. This would certainly move a great many objects and create an enormous amount of activity. It might or might not be useful, according to the standards which we apply. However it would never result in the abolishment of down.

— Thurman W. Arnold

A man's own self is his friend. A man's own self is his foe.

— Bhagavad Gita

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is week. [Matthew 26:41]

— Bible

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. [(Romans 7:19]

— Bible

I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. [2 Timothy 4:7]

— Bible

Only by pride comes contention; but, with the well-advised is wisdom. [Proverbs 13:10]

— Bible

You are at enmity with yourself.

— Jacob Boehme

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling.

— Nathaniel Branden

We gain our ends only with the laws of nature; we control her only by understanding her laws.

— Jacob Bronowski

The archenemy is the arch stupid!

— Thomas Carlyle

I cannot divine how it happens that the man who knows the least is the most argumentative.

— Giovani della Casa

I believe in getting into hot water. I think it keeps you clean.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

One might as well try to ride two horses moving in different directions, as to try to maintain in equal force two opposing or contradictory sets of desires.

— Robert Collier

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

— Charles Caleb Colton

The easiest thing to find on God's green earth is someone to tell you all the things you cannot do.

— Richard M. DeVos

You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable,

— Princess of Wales Diana

No man is hurt but by himself

— Diogenes of Sinope

Don't jump on a man unless he is down.

— Finley Peter Dunne

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

— Albert Einstein

We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves...

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are the prisoners of ideas.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Perhaps no mightier conflict of mind occurs ever again in a lifetime than that first decision to unseat one's own tooth.

— Gene Fowler

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

— Benjamin Franklin

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?

— Margaret Gatty

I'm not a combative person. My long experience has taught me to resolve conflict by raising the issues before I or others burn their boats.

— Alistair Grant

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.

— Napoleon Hill

Why don't you want to do what you know you should do? The reason you don't is that you're in conflict with yourself.

— Tom Hopkins

We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us.

— Vernon Howard

We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.

— Vernon Howard

Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.

— Vernon Howard

What people need and what they want may be very different.

— Elbert Hubbard

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

— Carl Jung

No man ever did a designed injury to another, but at the same time he did a greater to himself.

— Lord Kames

If we cannot end our differences at least we can make the world safe for diversity.

— John F. Kennedy

The split in you is clear. There is a part of you that knows what it should do, and a part that does what it feels like doing.

— John Cantwell Kiley

What a man knows is everywhere at war with what he wants.

— Joseph Wood Krutch

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. It is the same spirit that says, You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.

— Abraham Lincoln

Instead of suppressing conflicts, specific channels could be created to make this conflict explicit, and specific methods could be set up by which the conflict is resolved.

— Albert Low

The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.

— Thomas B. Macaulay

Talk back to your internal critic. Train yourself to recognize and write down critical thoughts as they go through your mind. Learn why these thoughts are untrue and practice talking and writing back to them.

— Robert J. Mckain

The most important of life's battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of the soul.

— David O. Mckay

The most dramatic conflicts are perhaps, those that take place not between men but between a man and himself -- where the arena of conflict is a solitary mind.

— Clark Moustakas

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.

— Richard M. Nixon

This duality has been reflected in classical as well as modern literature as reason versus passion, or mind versus intuition. The split between the conscious mind and the unconscious. There are moments in each of our lives when our verbal-intellect suggests one course, and our hearts, or intuition, another.

— Robert E. Ornstein

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.

— Blaise Pascal

The war existing between the senses and reason.

— Blaise Pascal

Have a dialogue between the two opposing parts and you will find that they always start out fighting each other until we come to an appreciation of difference, ... a oneness and integration of the two opposing forces. Then the civil war is finished, and your energies are ready for your struggle with the world.

— Frederick Salomon Perls

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

— Plato

A good swordsman is not given to quarrel.

— French Proverb

Who digs a pit for others will fall in themselves.

— German Proverb

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

— Joseph Roux

When our knowing exceeds our sensing, we will no longer be deceived by the illusions of our senses.

— Walter Russell

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Modern science knows much about such conflicts. We call the mental state that engenders it ambivalence: a collision between thought and feeling.

— David Seabury

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.

— Seneca

Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner. Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword.

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Commonly they must use their feet for defense whose only weapon is their tongue.

— Sir Philip Sidney

What rights are those that dare not resist for them?

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

— Henry David Thoreau

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

— James Thurber

We cannot really think in one way and act in another...

— Thomas Troward

The trouble with self-made men is that they tend to worship their creator.

— Source Unknown

Like a ball bated back and forth, a human being is batted by two forces within.

— Yogabindu Upanishad

The subconscious part in us is called the subjective mind, because it does not decide and command. It is subject rather than a ruler. Its nature is to do what it is told, or what really in your heart of hearts you desire.

— William T. Walsh

It's when you're safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.

— Thornton Wilder

There are always two forces warring against each other within us.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

— Zig Ziglar