Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."

Please excuse my enemies

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies — but not before they have been hanged.

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged

One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.

You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.

You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor; He, who has mingled in the fray Of duty that the brave endure, Must have made foes! If you have none, Small is the work that you have done, You've hit no traitor on the hip, You've dashed no cup from perjured lip, You've never turned the wrong to right, You've been a coward in the fight.

Forgiveness of enemies can only come upon their repentance.

2759. If you have no Enemies, it’s a sign Fortune has forgot you.

To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeeds seriously for very long — that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget (a good example of this in modem times is Mirabeau, who had no memory for insults and vile actions done him and was unable to forgive simply because he — forgot). Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine 'love of one's enemies' is possible — supposing it to be possible at all on earth. How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies! — and such reverence is a bridge to love. — For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture 'the enemy' as the man of ressentiment conceives him — and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived 'the evil enemy,' 'the Evil One,' and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a 'good one' — himself!

May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, Thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies! Long live Christ the King!

It's all very well to tell us to forgive our enemies; our enemies can never hurt us very much. But oh, what about forgiving our friends?

I say no man ever before slew his friend mouthful of words.”
“And I say it has happened many times before. Consider the Assassinations, Thomas, you who are something of a critic of historical theses. Consider whether the Heroes have not more often been assassinated by friends than by enemies; consider whether some of them have not even been assassinated with their own consent.”
“I don’t consent.”
“If everything else has failed, if a program has fallen for such a silly nothing, if the hero would make a better hero when dead, then he was made a dead hero by his friends, for his own sake and the sake of his program. I could name a dozen clear cases of this, but I won’t; strong partisan feelings are still involved in some of them after the centuries. -