BETRAYAL QUOTES

quotations about betrayal

The girl who will share your life. She will love you, she will betray you, and finally she will die for you. And it will all have been for nothing. All for nothing in the end.

JOSEPH DELANEY

Attack of the Fiend


No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled.

GEORGE ELIOT

Romola


We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Camino Real


Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.

JEAN GENET

Prisoner of Love


When one does another person an injustice, in some mysterious way it does one good to discover (or to persuade oneself) that the injured party has also behaved badly or unfairly in some little matter or other; it is always a relief to the conscience if one can apportion some measure of guilt to the person one has betrayed.

STEFAN ZWEIG

Beware of Pity


Betray a friend, and you'll often find you have ruined yourself.

AESOP

Fables


Better ask questions before you shoot,
Deceit and betrayal's bitter fruit.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

"Lonesome Day", The Rising


It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation.

JOSEPH CONRAD

Some Reminiscences


Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

The Looking Glass War


Each betrayal begins with trust.

PHISH

Farmhouse


The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Macbeth


Betrayal and dishonor is usually an inside job.

T.F. HODGE

From Within I Rise


No one ever really pays for betrayal in silver.... The price of any betrayal always comes due in flesh.

STEPHEN KING

The Gunslinger


Thou hast prevaricated with thy friend,
By underhand contrivances undone me;
And while my open nature trusted in thee,
Thou hast stept in between me and my hopes,
And ravish'd from me all my soul held dear.
Thou hast betray'd me.

NICHOLAS ROWE

Lady Jane Grey


Betrayal can only happen if you love.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

A Perfect Spy


As a rule the person found out in a betrayal of love holds, all the same, the superior position of the two. It is the betrayed one who is humiliated.

ADA LEVERSON

Love's Shadow


Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.

JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER

Aphorisms on Man


God, why is betrayal the only truth that sticks?

ARTHUR MILLER

After the Fall


Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.

BARBARA KINGSOLVER

The Poisonwood Bible


Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace.

ANTHONY MINGHELLA

The English Patient