Quotes about Betrayal

From tender youth we are told by father and teacher that betrayal is the most heinous offense imaginable. But what is betrayal?…Betrayal means breaking ranks and breaking off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown.

Betrayal does that -- betrays the betrayer.

Betrayal is an important word with this guidepost. When we value being cool and in control over granting ourselves the freedom to unleash the passionate, goofy, heartfelt, and soulful expressions of who we are, we betray ourselves. When we consistently betray ourselves, we can expect to do the same to the people we love. When we don’t give ourselves permission to be free, we rarely tolerate that freedom in others. We put them down, make fun of them, ridicule their behaviors, and sometimes shame them. We can do this intentionally or unconsciously. Either way the message is, “Geez, man.

In my humble opinion, countries – nations are a completely obsolete category. One has only to look at the rivers of refugees from Syria and Africa and the armed army at the border crossings of various countries such as Hungary to understand that this world order is a source of evil and horror for the majority of the population of our planet. After all these years, I came to the conclusion that betrayal was somehow easy, too easy for our people. At all levels, in all categories, from public to private. It was and still is so easy to betray a friend, an idea, an attitude. And finally, himself. Betrayals are cowardly because they are most often motivated by opportunism or, even worse, fear. Cowardice and betrayal go hand in hand.

One act of betrayal can shatter a lifetime of trust.

Trust was a word you couldn't translate. But the atevi had fourteen words for betrayal.

For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.

[About giving in during a struggle session:] To betray yourself or others is to give away some part of what makes you truly human. It is to dehumanize yourself. It is to cut off a piece of your soul, and that is the part of you that honors others, that makes relationships trustworthy and loyal. That's the part that makes you trustworthy instead of craven. So when you fail, you make yourself less trustworthy. If you betray somebody, everybody else see you betray somebody for your own skin. You're craven and you damage all of your relationships. You become less trustworthy as a person. It's the part of you that makes you loyal. [...] They make you give that away. They don't take it from you. Pay attention. They make you give it away. So that you debase and demoralize yourself. So that you cut yourself off from your social circles. So that you undermine your worthiness. And that demorizes others who are disappointed in you when they see it happen. You make yourself less trustworthy, less loyal, less human, so that you can escape a psychological pressure that they are putting on you.

Trust is earned, respect is given, and loyalty is demonstrated. Betrayal of any one of those is to lose all three.

But if we betray B., for whom we betrayed A., it does not necessarily follow that we have placated A. The life of a divorcée-painter did not in the least resemble the life of the parents she had betrayed. The first betrayal is irreparable. It calls forth a chain reaction of further betrayals, each of which takes us farther and farther away from the point of our original betrayal.

Betrayal wears a lot of different hats. You don't have to make a show of it like Brutus did, you don't have to leave anything visible jutting from the base of your best friend's spine, and afterward can stand there straining your ears for hours, but you won't hear a cock crow either. No, the most insidious betrayals are done merely by leaving the life jacket hanging in your closet while you lie to yourself that it's probably not the drowning man's size. That's how we slide, and while we slide we blame the world's problems on colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, corporatism, stupid white men, and America, but there's no need to make a brand name of blame. Individual self-interest: that's the source of our descent, and it doesn't start in the boardroom or the war rooms either. It starts in the home.

If you betray yourself, if you say untrue things, if you act out a lie, you weaken your character.

I was duped, betrayed, they cheated on me like on an asshole.

"The history of mankind," said Dreed, "has been a history of betrayals, the perennial betrayal of the common man by the men he has trusted."

"By the men the lazy, haphazard, childish oaf was too wilfully stupid to mistrust," said Bodisham. "The history of mankind from the very beginning has been a history of over-trusted trustees, corrupted by their unchecked opportunities."

An action cannot be supported for telling a bare naked lie: but that I define to be, saying a thing that is false, knowing or not knowing it to be so, and without any design to injure, cheat, or deceive another person. Every deceit comprehends a he; but a deceit is more than a lie, on account of the view with which it is practised, its being coupled with some dealing, and the injury which it is calculated to occasion, and does occasion, to another person.