48 Betrayal Quotes To Ponder

Betrayal is a profound and deeply emotional experience that can leave lasting scars. Whether it's a friend, a partner, or a loved one, the sting of betrayal can shake the very foundation of trust. To help navigate these turbulent emotions, we've compiled a collection of thought-provoking and poignant quotes on betrayal. These 48 carefully selected quotes offer a blend of wisdom, reflection, and solace, providing a chance to ponder the complexities of trust and loyalty. Dive into these quotes to gain insight, find comfort, or simply reflect on the nature of betrayal in your own life.

1. “Verträge bricht man um des Nutzens willen.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

2. “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

3. “The guilt of not telling Frankie about Matt and me is overwhelming, but it's a pale second to the violation I feel that she read my most private, raw thoughts and destroyed them. She broke into my carefully guarded heart, stole the only remaining connection I had to Matt, and turned it into a monstrosity.” - Sarah Ockler

4. “Her only way home was to betray her friend.” - Scott Westerfeld

5. “Innocence invites protection, yet we might be smarter to protect ourselves against it...” - Megan Johns

6. “Pettiness often leads both to error and to the digging of a trap for oneself. Wondering (which I am sure he didn't) 'if by the 1990s [Hitchens] was morphing into someone I didn’t quite recognize”, Blumenthal recalls with horror the night that I 'gave' a farewell party for Martin Walker of the Guardian, and then didn't attend it because I wanted to be on television instead. This is easy: Martin had asked to use the fine lobby of my building for a farewell bash, and I'd set it up. People have quite often asked me to do that. My wife did the honors after Nightline told me that I’d have to come to New York if I wanted to abuse Mother Teresa and Princess Diana on the same show. Of all the people I know, Martin Walker and Sidney Blumenthal would have been the top two in recognizing that journalism and argument come first, and that there can be no hard feelings about it. How do I know this? Well, I have known Martin since Oxford. (He produced a book on Clinton, published in America as 'The President We Deserve'. He reprinted it in London, under the title, 'The President They Deserve'. I doffed my hat to that.) While Sidney—I can barely believe I am telling you this—once also solicited an invitation to hold his book party at my home. A few days later he called me back, to tell me that Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, had insisted on giving the party instead. I said, fine, no bones broken; no caterers ordered as yet. 'I don't think you quite get it,' he went on, after an honorable pause. 'That means you can't come to the party at all.' I knew that about my old foe Peretz: I didn't then know I knew it about Blumenthal. I also thought that it was just within the limit of the rules. I ask you to believe that I had buried this memory until this book came out, but also to believe that I won't be slandered and won't refrain—if motives or conduct are in question—from speculating about them in my turn.” - Christopher Hitchens

7. “Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.” - William Shakespeare

8. “It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.” - Confucius

9. “Friendship's enemy is betrayal.” - Toba Beta

10. “If you're betrayed, release disappointment at once.By that way, the bitterness has no time to take root.” - Toba Beta

11. “I have striven never to betray myself” - Jude Morgan

12. “MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE:When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find “good reasons” to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with “good reasons” for his lies. He tells us he only lied because…. We tell ourselves he only lied because…. We make excuses for him: The lying wasn’t significant/Everybody lies/He’s only human/I have no right to judge him.Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities:• He’s not the man I thought he was.• The relationship has spun out of control and I don’t know what to do• The relationship may be over. Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that he’s lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.” - Susan Forward

13. “What irritated me most in that entire situation was the fact that Iwasn’t feeling humiliated, or annoyed, or even fooled. Betrayal waswhat I felt, my heart broken not just by a guy I was in love with, butalso by, as I once believed, a true friend.” - Danka V.

14. “Proper deformity shows not in the fiendSo horrid as in woman.” - William Shakespeare

15. “Can'ttrustpeople. Won'tdoanygood. They'llkillyoueverytime. They'llkilleachother. They'llkilleveryone.” - Haruki Murakami

16. “I think given the choice between loving Mare - betrayal included - and never knowing her, I'd chose love. I risked, and I lost, but the risk was still worth it.” - Brandon Sanderson

17. “From Orient PointThe art of living isn't hard to muster:Enjoy the hour, not what it might portend.When someone makes you promises, don't trust herunless they're in the here and now, and just herwilling largesse free-handed to a friend.The art of living isn't hard to muster:groom the old dog, her coat gets back its luster;take brisk walks so you're hungry at the end.When someone makes you promises, don't trust herto know she can afford what they will cost herto keep until they're kept. Till then, pretendthe art of living isn't hard to muster.Cooking, eating and drinking are a clusterof pleasures. Next time, don't go round the bendwhen someone makes you promises. Don't trust herpast where you'd trust yourself, and don't adjust herwords to mean more to you than she'd intend.The art of living isn't hard to muster.You never had her, so you haven't lost herlike spare house keys. Whatever she opens,when someone makes you promises, don't. Trust yourart; go on living: that's not hard to muster.” - Marilyn Hacker

18. “I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself.” - Rosamund Lupton

19. “Betrayal is beautiful.” - Jean Genet

20. “We are not wounded so deeply when betrayed by the things we hope for as when betrayed by things we try our best to despise.In such betrayal comes the dagger in the back.” - Yukio Mishima

21. “True love is tested when betrayed.” - Toba Beta

22. “Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.” - George Orwell

23. “George stared at the dove. What would she say if she could speak to him? What would she wish for, for her father? For she, too, had been harmed by a man who had meant to show his utmost love for her.It made George wonder why love was suppose to be such a wonderful thing. As far as he could tell, love was just another excuse for causing pain.” - Mette Ivie Harrison

24. “For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!This was the most unkindest cut of all” - William Shakespeare

25. “Never be silent with persons you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays.” - L.M. Montgomery

26. “...fool me once, shame on me…fool me twice…I deserved to get fucked over.” - Derekica Snake

27. “Takamasa Saegusa: 'Seigen, a mere member of the Toudouza, had the effrontery to sully the sacred dueling ground. For that reason, our lord had already decided to subject him to tu-uchi before long. Cut off his head immediately, and stick it on a pike!'Gennosuke could hardly believe his ears. Such an insult to Irako Seigen was unwarranted. It was pride. For Gennosuke, Irako Seigen was pride itself.Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke! It is the way of the samurai to take the head of the defeated enemy on the battleground. Do not hesitate! If you are a samurai, you must carry out the duty of a samurai!'Samurai...Saegusa, Lord of Izu, continued shouting, but Gennosuke did not attend. That word 'samurai' alone reverberated through his body.If one aims at the juncture between the base of the skull and the spine, decapitation is not that difficult, but Gennosuke could muster no more strength than a baby. He grew pale and trembled with the strain. He could only hack with his sword as if he were sawing wood. He felt nauseated, as if his own cells one after another were being annihilated. But this...Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga: 'I approve.'Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke, for this splendid action you have received words of thanks from our lord. As a sign of his exceptional approval, you shall be given employment at Sunpu Castle. This great debt will by no means be forgotten. From this day forward you must offer your life to our lord!'Prostrating himself, Gennosuke vomited.” - Takayuki Yamaguchi

28. “I find it most offensive that the character of Reason, whom [Jean den Meun (author of the Romance of the Rose)] himself calls the daughter of God, should put forth such a statement as ... where she says by way of a proverb that "in the war of Love it is better to deceive than be deceived." And indeed I dare say that in making that statement Jean den Meun's Reason denied her Father, for the doctrine He gave was altogether different.” - Christine de Pizan

29. “Was it all in my head? A Lunar trick?”Her stomach twisted. “No.” She shook her head, fervently. How to explain that she hadn’t had the gift before? That she couldn’t have used it against him? “I would never lie—”The words faded. She had lied. Everything he knew about her had been a lie.“I’m so sorry,” she finished, the words falling lamely in the open air.Kai peeled his eyes away, finding some place of resignation off in the glistening garden. “You’re even more painful to look at than she is.” - Marissa Meyer

30. “I said I don't want to know," Kailani said firmly, her voice suddenly too loud. Cristina sat back into the bench, her eyes wide and disappointed. Then Ana started waving wildly, her small hand arcing for her mother's undivided attention, and, as Kailani watched in silence, the child slipped safely down the slide."Kailani to Cristina” - Siobhan Fallon

31. “I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my body.” - Veronica Roth

32. “A son for a son, heh. But that's a grandson...and he never was much use." --Walder Frey” - George R.R. Martin

33. “It's very easy to get a boy to leave the room.It's much harder to get him to leave your thoughts.” - Elizabeth Eulberg

34. “Bittersweet? No, just bitter, the taste of your tongue.Words you can’t have back, so they linger.” - Coco J. Ginger

35. “A woman who would steal your love when your love was really all you had to give was not much of a woman.” - Stephen King

36. “Tears welled in Penelope's eyes, making the blue even darker. Then she reeled back and slapped him hard enough that his cheek stung."That is for what you did to me. Not in the dark, Jeremy. Not as the faceless lover. Not even for today when you made love to me... or perhaps we should call it 'fucking', since there was nothing loving about it, only manipulation". Her voice shook as hard as her hands as she turned on her heel and headed for the door. "It's for betraying my friendship".” - Jess Michaels

37. “Defeat I can endure with cheerfulness, my lady. But betrayal is like taking the wind from my sails, or the earth from beneath my feet. It chills my spirits like a rainy day, and all I can do is draw the curtains and cry into my pillow.” - Margaret George

38. “He sells his loyalties to the highest bidder. Shouldn’t even a mercenary have morals? That’s the textbook definition of a whore!” - Nadia Scrieva

39. “We met less than a week ago and in that time I've done nothing but lie and cheat and betray you. I know. But if you give me a chance...all I want is to protect you. To be near you. For as long as I'm able.” - Marissa Meyer

40. “Only people you trust can ever really betray you, Amber.” - Mark Henwick

41. “Shattered legs may heal in time, but some betrayals fester and poison the soul.” - George R.R. Martin

42. “my own chocolate center has filled up with poison,the roses he gave me all twisted black” - Terra Elan McVoy

43. “Sometimes, instead of being hurt, you should look at betrayal as a gift. It makes it that much easier to sweep it up and toss it out with the rest of the trash. And why is that you ask? Because trash starts to stink...and when it does, it has no more value in your life.” - Donna Schoenrock

44. “Marriage is not easy, I thought to myself. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s two different people, from two different backgrounds, trying to build a life together for better or worse. It’s something you have to work at every single day. There are going to be hard times and those are the times you are supposed to fight like hell.” - Courtney Giardina

45. “Well, good afternoon, sunshine. How are you feeling?""Like something the cat dragged in, then dragged back outside to leave in the rain, and mud, then the lightning hit it, and burned it, and the cat came back to tear it into pieces, before burying it.” - Kimberly Montague

46. “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

47. “I'm not really sure why. But... do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don't think so. That's what makes the betrayal hurt so much - pain, frustration, anger... and I still loved her. I still do.” - Brandon Sanderson

48. “And then there was Lydia.Lydia who had hurtled into his life – into their lives – with hair like fire, eyes like amethysts and a fuck-me scent so palpable that he’d betrayed the only woman he’d ever loved.” - Dianna Hardy