Frankness invites frankness. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A promise made is a debt unpaid. – Robert W. Service
Each man kills the thing he loves. – Anthony Burgess
When all else fails, tell the truth. – Donald T. Regan
Lying can never save us from another lie. – Vaclav Havel
Self interest determines loyalty or betrayal. – James Cook
Loyalty is from above, betrayal is from below. – Bob Sorge
More dangers have deceived men than forced them. – Francis Bacon
How many times do you get to lie before you are a liar? – Michael Josephson
Men’s minds are too ready to excuse guilt in themselves. – Livy
Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead. – Oscar Wilde
I have not observed mens honesty to increase with their riches. – Thomas Jefferson
We are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent. – Oscar Wilde
It’s better to be hanged for loyalty than be rewarded for betrayal. – Vladimir Putin
For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first. – Suzanne Collins
It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. – Confucius
The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying. – Thomas Huxley
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. – Unknown
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. – Josh Billings
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made. – Jean Giraudoux
Betrayal, in one form or another, is at the very heart of the world of intelligence. – Thomas Powers
We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. – Abraham Lincoln
I’ll kill you with my own hands rather than let you put the mark of Cain on my brother! – Abraham Polonsky
Some people are willing to betray years of friendship just to get a little bit of the spotlight. – Lauren Conrad
Following Christ, the Church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as the majority opinion. – Pope John Paul II
It was a mistake,” you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you. – David Levithan
The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. – George Bernard Shaw
Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned. – Eminem
Don’t depend too much on anyone in this world because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness. – Ibn Taymiyyah
Trust is earned, respect is given, and loyalty is demonstrated. Betrayal of any one of those is to lose all three. – Ziad K. Abdelnour
In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. – Immanuel Kant
I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray. – Albert Camus
All trust involves vulnerability and risk, and nothing would count as trust if there were no possibility of betrayal. – Robert C. Solomon
Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first. – Steve Irwin
Just because they say they’re praying for you in your face, doesn’t mean they aren’t laughing at your struggle behind your back. – Trent Shelton
All advertising, whether it lies in the field of business or of politics, will carry success by continuity and regular uniformity of application. – Adolf Hitler
Worse, the deadly accuracy of filial faultfinding is facilitated by access, by trust, by willing disclosure, and so constitutes a double betrayal. – Lionel Shriver
Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police. – Albert Einstein
Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard Some do it with a bitter look Some with a flattering word The coward does it with a kiss The brave man with a sword – Oscar Wilde
Oh lovers! be careful in those dangerous first days! once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal. – Milan Kundera
Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It’s what unites us. The trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens. Don’t let them take that from you. – Sherrilyn Kenyon
Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord; to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies. – Maya Angelou
My first language, the true language of the soul spoken only on our planet of origin, had no word for betrayal or traitor. Or even loyalty- because without the opposite, the concept had no meaning. – Stephenie Meyer
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If people speak or act with evil thoughts, pain follows them. If people speak or act with pure thoughts, happiness follows them, like a shadow that never leaves them. – Gautama Buddha
To my fancy, one looks back on life, it has only two responsibilities, which include all the others: one is the bringing of new life into existence; the other, educating it after it is brought in. All betrayals of trust result from these original sins. – Henry Adams
There must be love, and understanding, to betray. Most men haven’t the wit or the honor for betrayal: not to know it when they see it; not the stomach to apprehend it as they do it. Most men, blind and dumb in their self-centeredness, don’t betray: they merely disappoint. – Janet Morris
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. – Janet Malcolm
If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes. – Thomas More
There are allegations actually that he’s [Vladimir Putin] associated with real gangsters in the past and that he runs his top circle sort of like a mafia family. But, you know, what is clear is that he seems to prize loyalty above all. He deeply resents anything that he sees as a betrayal. – Corey Flintoff
Four characteristics constitute anyone who possesses them a sheer hypocrite, and anyone who possesses one of them possesses a characteristic of hypocrisy till he abandons it: when he is trusted he betrays his trust, when he talks he lies, when he makes a covenant he acts treacherously and when he quarrels he abuses. – Elijah Muhammad
For life is an expression, our unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought. Perhaps we reveal ourselves too much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal. The tiny incidents of daily rouitine are as much a commentary of racial ideas as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry. – Okakura Kakuzo
How can it be, I wondered, that we can be lying in bed next to a person we love wholly and helplessly, a person we love more than our own breath, and still ache to think of the one who caused us pain all those years ago? It’s the betrayal of this second heart of ours, its flesh tied off like a fingertip twined tightly round with a single hair, blue-tinged from lack of blood. The shameful squeeze of it. – Carolyn Parkhurst
My highest achievement: never shutting my heart down. Even in my darkest moments – through sexual abuse, a pregnancy at 14, lies and betrayals – I remained faithful, hopeful, and open to seeing the best in people, regardless of whether they were showing me their worst. I stayed open to believing that no matter how hard the climb, there is always a way to let in a sliver of light to illuminate the path forward. – Oprah Winfrey
When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate. – Herman Melville
Here’s how I became myself: mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive reading; limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment, and endless conversations with my best women friends; the loss of people without whom I could not live, the loss of pets that left me reeling, dizzying betrayals but much greater loyalty, and overall, choosing as my motto William Blake’s line that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love. – Anne Lamott
Every love relationship rests on an unwritten agreement unthinkingly concluded by the lovers in the first weeks of their love. They are still in a kind of dream but at the same time, without knowing it, are drawing up, like uncompromising lawyers, the detailed clauses of their contract. O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal. – Milan Kundera
I say no to a double standard that men can roam and women must stay put at home. I say no to the fact that men are allowed to claim their sexuality and women just have to pretend that it doesn’t matter to them. It’s resisting poor relational arrangements. An affair is a way of saying, “No. I’m not playing by the rules.” And sometimes betrayal is part of that because you deceive somebody else but you feel like you are, for the first time, being honest with yourself. Sometimes when people have affairs, they feel like they have been lying to themselves for years. – Esther Perel
