Literary notes about Hostility (AI summary)
In literature, the word "hostility" is deployed to convey a spectrum of conflict—from the overt clashes of nation-states to the subtle undercurrents of personal resentment. It appears in historical narratives to denote political and military antagonism, as when state actors harbor deep distrust and seek retaliation [1, 2]. At a more intimate level, authors use it to illustrate the breakdown of relationships and the internal disintegration of character or society [3, 4]. Philosophical and sociological texts further expand its meaning, employing "hostility" as a metaphor for the intrinsic tension between natural impulses and civilized restraint [5, 6]. Thus, across genres, the term encapsulates a dynamic range of antagonistic forces that shape both personal lives and collective histories [7, 8].
- Corinth was forming schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected her hostility.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides - His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were alarmed at the hostility of the Phocians.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides - The mockery ceased, but the hostility remained, and cold and strained relations became permanent between us.
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Within the closed circle hostility signifies, as a rule, the severing of relationships, voluntary isolation, and the avoidance of contact.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - " Christianity is that which says no to all that is natural, it is a certain lack of dignity in being natural; hostility to Nature.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - On the other hand, hostile intentions may often exist without being accompanied by any, or at all events by any extreme, hostility of feeling.
— from On War by Carl von Clausewitz - No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides - So neither should you put yourself in a false position to your contemporaries by indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
