The term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. The term implies that the "enemies" in question are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as Latin: hostis publicus, typically translated into English as the "public enemy". The term in its "enemy of the people" form has been used for centuries in literature ("An Enemy of the People", the play by Henrik Ibsen, 1882). Currently this form is mostly used as a reference to Soviet phraseology.
Read more about Enemy Of The People: Origins of The Expression, Soviet Union
Famous quotes containing the words enemy of the, enemy of, enemy and/or people:
““You, madam, are the eternal humorist,
The eternal enemy of the absolute,
Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!...””
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him:
But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.
We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm LV (l. LV, 12–14)
“How much better when the whole land is a garden, and the people have grown up in the bowers of a paradise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)