Let him that is without stone among you cast the first thing he can lay his hands on.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
If you want an audience start a fight.
—Irish Proverb
People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.
—Pauline Phillips (Abigail van Buren) (b.1918) American Columnist
The course of true love never did run smooth.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The soldiers fight, and the kings are heroes.
—Yiddish Proverb
If you are going out for a fight leave your best hat at home.
—Japanese Proverb
Lovers quarrels are the renewal of love.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
Fighting for your country glorifies death.
—Russian Proverb
They who fight with golden weapons are pretty sure to prove they are right.
—Dutch Proverb
A quarrel between friends, when made up, adds a new tie to friendship, as … the callosity formed round a broken bone makes it stronger than before.
—Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French Catholic Saint
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
Sit atop the mountain and watch the tigers fight.
—Chinese Proverb
Bulls get rich, bears get rich, but pigs get slaughtered An Irishman is never at his best except when fighting.
—Irish Proverb
It’s better to pick a fight with your in-laws than with your neighbors.
—Indian Proverb
You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Advising often better than fighting.
—German Proverb
The most terrible fight is not when there is one opinion against another, the most terrible is when two men say the same thing—and fight about the interpretation, and this interpretation involves a difference of quality.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine; the commonest man shows a grace in his quarrel.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
The last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel—and all of them are right.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
Dogs that always fight always have bleeding ears.
—French Proverb
Coarse kindness is, at least, better than coarse anger; and in all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of its dullness.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
If there be no enemy there’s no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
In this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Nazi Leader, Chancellor of Germany
When there is no enemy it is safe to fight.
—German Proverb
The longer a man lives in this world the more he must be convinced that all domestic quarrels had better never be obtruded on the public; for, let the husband be right, or let him be wrong, there is always a sympathy existing for women which is certain to give the man the worst of it.
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) English Painter, Writer
It is no use cutting a stick when the fight is over.
—Japanese Proverb
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it’s be brave or else be killed.
—Margaret Mitchell (1900–49) American Novelist, Journalist
My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.
—Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones) (1837–1930) Irish-American Labor Activist
You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
In a fight the rich man tries to save his face, the poor man his Coat.
—Russian Proverb
When the fight begins within himself, a man’s worth something.
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
Wise men do not quarrel with each other.
—Danish Proverb
A liberal is a man who leaves the room when the fight starts.
—Heywood Hale Broun (1918–2001) American Journalist, Commentator, Actor
The mediator in a fight gets all the blows.
—Persian Proverb
Those who live are those who fight.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero’s heart.
—Common Proverb
The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Never go to bed angry, stay up and fight.
—Phyllis Diller (b.1917) American Actor, Comedian
There is no mother like your own mother.
—African Proverb
I strove with none; for none was worth my strife.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
For he that fights and runs away, may live to fight another day, but he, who is in battle slain, can never rise and fight again.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
One cannot part two fighting bulls.
—African Proverb
The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything we have missed something—war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.
—Derek Walcott (1930–2017) West Indian Poet, Dramatist