be one's own worst enemy

be one's own worst enemy

English

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Verb

be one's own worst enemy (highly irregular; for conjugation, see be)

1. (idiomatic) To cause problems for one's self, act contrary to one's own interest, self-sabotage.

   She's her own worst enemy.

   • 1870, Mary Dwinell Chellis, Mark Dunning's Enemy‎, page 27:

     “Mark is his own worst enemy. Good night.” True. No enemy however powerful and malicious, can so work a man's ruin as his own unbridled passions and depraved appetites.

   • 1881 [1589], Charles Thornton Forster & F.H. Blackburne Daniell, The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq‎, translation from the Latin of Legationis Turcicae epistolae quatuor by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, page 221:

     For each man is his own worst enemy, and has no foe more deadly than his own intemperance, which is sure to kill him, if the enemy be not quick.