In a speech Abraham Lincoln delivered at the height of the Civil War,
he referred to the Southerners as fellow human beings who were in
error. An elderly lady chastised him for not calling them irreconcilable
enemies who must be destroyed. “Why, madam,” Lincoln replied,
“do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

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About Robert Greene

Robert Greene (born May 14, 1959, in Los Angeles) is an American author specializing in books about strategy, power and seduction. His first book was The 48 Laws of Power (1998), which became a best-seller with more than 1 million copies sold in the US.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Additional quotes by Robert Greene

But the human tongue is a beast that few can master. It strains constantly to break out of its cage, and if it is not tamed, it will run wild and cause you grief. Power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words.

Desire is both imitative (we like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from others what they have). As children, we wanted to monopolize the attention of a parent, to draw it away from other siblings. This sense of rivalry... makes people compete for the attention.