Opponent Quotes

“The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.”
― Stephen Jay Gould

“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“It is impossible to win a contest with a helpless opponent since if you win you have won nothing.”
― Jay Haley

“One thing that makes aikido is so powerful,
it utilizes power of opponents to win the fight.”
― Toba Beta

“Before picking fights, learn to assess your opponents.”
― Tamuna Tsertsvadze, Galaxy Pirates

“Don’t push back. Keep asking questions. Insist on drilling down to definitions (“Define Star Trek”), details, and sources. And see if you can outlast your bullying opponent. If you can—if he walks away exasperated—then, despite all I’ve written about previously…you win.”
― Jay Heinrichs, Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

“Eye-for-eye’ policy works well when you are stronger than the one who has hurt you. When your opponent is more powerful than you, ‘offer your other cheek’ law often works better.”
― Awdhesh Singh, 31 Ways to Happiness

“Your opponent can observe and exploit any systematic pattern almost as easily as he can exploit an unchanging repetition of a single strategy. It is unpredictability that is important when mixing.”
― Avinash K. Dixit, The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life

“Some battles you need to let your opponent win.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Fighting was chess, anticipating the move of one's opponent and countering it before one got hit.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“an adversarial mindset not only prevents us from understanding and responding to the other party, but also makes us feel like we've lost when we don't get our way”
― Harvard Business Review, Emotional Intelligence: Empathy

“Your opponent never knows what you have in mind, until you make the first move.”
― Alan Maiccon

“Very often the most-fanatical opponents of a theory or dogma can be crowned its greatest champion when personal circumstances or the prevailing societal wind changes. Once-heretical ideas now directly suit their purpose.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The goal in most conflicts is to destroy your opponent. The goal in apologetics is to win your opponent.”
― Ravi Zacharias

“Always respect your opponents because they are enemies you have generated. The reason why they look like enemies is that we are all contestants who want to reach a common goal, that’s all.
-Red White Love: The Love of Liverpool FC”
― Mustafa Dönmez

“Do your best and take your rest. He who fights and recharges is poised to discharge his opponent.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“A football player must not complain about obstacles. Blocking you from scoring is your opponents’ dharma. Blocking your opponents from scoring is your dharma. Those who succeed in breaking opponents’ dharma wins ultimately.”
― Sijin Bt

“When you are in the ring, do not show your opponent that you are scared of them.”
― Nkahloleng Eric Mohlala

“Before each series I spent a lot of time visualizing new ways to neutralize our next opponent’s attack.”
― Phil Jackson, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

“It is to our advantage to hate our opponent, but to our disadvantage to underestimate our opponent.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Hating our opponent benefits us. Underestimating them benefits them.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Every Great Story involves a normal person who answers the Call to become a HERO. Every HERO has a worthy opponent. Who is Yours?”
― Lance Wallnau

“This also serves as a clever way of neutralizing potential opponents. “Angela is very skilled at appropriating any issue as soon as it gains traction,” said Gauck.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“if the two of you are alone, walk away. If you have an audience, consider throwing the fallacy back at your opponent. “I see. Purple is a fruit. So, since your skin is tan, that makes you a pair of khakis.”
― Jay Heinrichs, Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

“I remind myself that my fiercest opponent will be my own brain’s well-meaning protective circuitry. It’s a lesson I first learned in my breakthrough 1,500-meter race in Sherbrooke more than two decades ago, but its implications continue to surprise me. I’m eager to learn more, in the coming years, about which signals the brain responds to, how those signals are processed, and—yes—whether they can be altered. But it’s enough, for now, to know that when the moment of truth comes, science has confirmed what athletes have always believed: that there’s more in there—if you’re willing to believe it.”
― Alex Hutchinson, Endure By Alex Hutchinson & The Rise of Superman By Steven Kotler 2 Books Collection Set

“...when they are gone, it will be use staring across a chessboard at each other. And when I best you, I will make sure I do it as thoroughly as I would any opponent who has shown themselves to be my equal.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“The weakest opponent is a mannequin.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“It’s one thing to lose to a better opponent and quite another to beat yourself.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Leadership by Example: Be a role model who inspires greatness in others

“There is no worse opponent than life. What you lose in a fight is nonsense in comparison to what you may lose in life.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“Far too often the survival of our argument hinges entirely on our ability to effectively declare our opponent’s argument as indefensible so that the indefensible nature of our own argument will never be revealed as such.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough