59 Quotes On Betrayal

Betrayal is a profound emotional experience that has been explored and articulated by thinkers, writers, and artists throughout history. It can cut deeply, altering relationships and changing our perspectives on trust and loyalty. In seeking solace or understanding of such experiences, we often turn to the words of others who have captured the essence of betrayal. Whether you're dealing with personal heartbreak or grappling with themes of trust in broader contexts, our curated collection of 59 powerful quotes on betrayal offers insights and reflections that highlight the universal nature of this enduring human dilemma. Explore these quotes and find words that resonate with your own journey.

1. “It's hard to tell who has your back, from who has it long enough just to stab you in it....” - Nicole Richie

2. “You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?” - Emily Brontë

3. “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

4. “Our nemesis is time, against which we have a single ally, memory, and even it betrays us.” - Sam Tanenhaus

5. “Only those you trust can betray you.” - Terry Goodkind

6. “He, who had done more than any human being to draw her out of the caves of her secret, folded life, now threw her down into deeper recesses of fear and doubt. The fall was greater than she had ever known, because she had ventured so far into emotion and had abandoned herself to it.” - Anais Nin

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

8. “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

9. “The point was to learn what it was we feared more: being misunderstood or being betrayed.” - Adam Levin

10. “There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

11. “One day you will learn that love does not always betray you.” - Mary Balogh

12. “To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.” - Malcolm X

13. “Revenge writing is a female genre. Men who have been left by women or made cuckolds by rivals either lick their wounds in humiliated silence or start the Trojan Wars. Having no other power or public voice, the betrayed woman reaches for her pen.” - Frances Wilson

14. “Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.” - Wallace Stegner

15. “Laine slowly rolled out of bed. The queen size was one of the few new things in the house. But now, even the new bed felt tainted. It was an inner-spring monument to lies, a petri dish of mendacity she had shared with her faithless husband, and shared now with creeping dreams that flew from the light but left harsh scratches and diseased black feathers. Laine promised herself that, as soon as, she could, she would rid herself of this house, this bed, her clothes, her jewelry - everything but the flesh she lived in. She would scrub herself clean and flee to start a new life whose first and only commandment would be: Never let thyself be lied to again.” - Stephen M. Irwin

16. “The worst pain in the world goes beyond the physical. Even further beyond any other emotional pain one can feel. It is the betrayal of a friend.” - Heather Brewer

17. “It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. I hate her, yet I do not think I can exist without her.” - Charlotte Featherstone

18. “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.

19. “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

20. “I wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it’s easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.” - Holly Black

21. “Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” - Arthur Miller

22. “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

23. “Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.” - Sara Gruen

24. “Betrayal is beautiful.” - Jean Genet

25. “Your penis betrayed you, son. Made you think stupid. It won't be the last time that happens.” - Justin Halpern

26. “Now when Túrin learnt from Finduilas of what had passed, he was wrathful, and he said to Gwindor: 'In love I hold you for your rescue and sake-keeping. But now you have done ill to me, friend, to betray my right name, and call my doom upon me, from which I would lie hid.'But Gwindor answered: 'The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

27. “I love to walk through snow, to climb mountains, to smell the fresh air and I love to dream about flying. Soaring through the air, watching the earth from above, feeling the wind in my face and touching the clouds would be an amazing experience.” - Oliver Neubert

28. “Anyone? On Snow's visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta. "Convince me," Snow said. It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta's life in limbo, I finally did. And In doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me.” - Suzanne Collins

29. “A true gentleman is one that apologizes anyways, even though he has not offended a lady intentionally. He is in a class all of his own because he knows the value of a woman's heart.” - Shannon Alder

30. “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

31. “You renounce your friendship even in the hour of our need ' he said. 'Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores fainthearted loiterers and well-nigh emptyhanded. In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

32. “For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.” - Suzanne Collins

33. “Sometimes duplicity and treason are markers of the enemy, and sometimes, the failed intention of a masterful ally. But, nevertheless, as they burden you with a vexing brand of love, they become nothing more than the kiss of Judas, pressing a crown of thorns into your flesh.” - Addison Moore

34. “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” - Brené Brown

35. “Be safe, she whispered. Then she closed her eyes and said in a low, broken monotone, "I love you.KailaniSiobhan Fallon” - Siobhan Fallon

36. “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

37. “She was like a queen who beholds the virgin soil of her kingdom invaded and wasted by a traitor.Any other thing she would have pardoned: infidelity, indifference, cruelty, any sins of manhood's caprice or passion, but who should pardon this? The sin was not alone against herself; it was against every law of decency and truth that ever she had been taught to hold sacred; it was against all those great dead, who lay with the cross on their breasts and their swords by their side, from whom she had received and treasured the traditions of honor and purity of race.It was those dead knights whom he had smote upon the mouth and mocked, crying to them: 'Lo! your place is mine; my sons will reign in your stead. I have tainted your race forever; for every my blood flows with yours!'The greatness of a race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its instincts are noble and supreme. Its obligations are no less than its privileges; it is a great light which streams backward through the darkness of the ages, and if by that light you guide not your footsteps, then are you thrice accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honor in your hands.So she had always thought, and now he had dashed the lamp in the dust.--"Wanda” - Ouida

38. “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

39. “You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.” - Catherynne M. Valente

40. “I watched you try on suits in Hugo Boss.‘For the big job,’ you said. And I laughed, because I knew I would never see it. I’d never get up and watch you put it on and walk out of the door. I would never be the one that you came home to.” - Kate Chisman

41. “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

42. “I longed to return to that bloody riverbank, to throw myself in the path of the final arrow, to die ignorant, and so, in love. Better to be killed by an arrow than by the words of the one I most trusted.” - Robin Wasserman

43. “Often people that say they “don’t care” actually do. The moment they discuss you with their friends and family, compete with you, bad mouth you to others or react to anything you do or say is when they give themselves away. You can either be saddened or flattered that you effected someone so much. The perspective is yours to determine.” - Shannon L. Alder

44. “But he didn't need to seek visual confirmation of what he'd just heard to know she had. And the truth was, he couldn't blame her. He'd not have let her die, either. He'd have moved mountains. He'd have battled God or Devil for his wife's life. She'd betrayed him. He smiled faintly.” - Karen Marie Moning

45. “I don't understand my feelings. I really don't. I don't understand how I could hate you so much after so much time. How, no matter how much I'd like to not hate you, I hate you even more. It grows.” - Sam Shepard

46. “There's nothing easier to control than a person who trusts you. They place their hope in your hands. They place their respect in your hands. What is truly fearsome about such delusional admiration, is the betrayal that you don't see, hidden within the white void of truth.” - Lionel Suggs

47. “A traitor may betray himself and do good he does not intend.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

48. “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

49. “When we fail, our pride supports us, and when we succeed it betrays us.” - Charles Colton

50. “It pained her that a few hundred words in an also-ran newspaper could get her kicked out. That damned article.And Rook.Her sharpest agony. She had invested in this guy. Waited for this guy. Felt something for this guy that went beyond the bedroom ... or wherever else they took each other. Nikki did not give herself easily to a man, and this betrayal by Rook was why. Heat reflected on her answer at the oral boards about her greatest flaw and admitted her reply was a mask. Yes, her identification with her job was total. But her greatest flaw wasn’t overinvestment in her career. It was her reticence to be vulnerable. Unarmed as she was-literally-she had been emotionally so with Rook.That was the gut shot that had blown clean through her soul.” - Richard Castle

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

52. “You're just jealous," I said."You can believe what you want," Aaron said. "But somebody's stealing from the Grimm Collection. They're either taking the objects or somehow sucking out their magic. Doc and theh librarians are going to find out who, and if Marc is in on it, you're going to be sorry you were helping him.""Marc isn't in on it. And I love this place too! We're all on the same side!""I hope that's true," Aaron said.” - Polly Shulman

53. “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

54. “It's effortless to let go of self-absorbed people. It's challenging to let go of someone you care about and it's exceedingly difficult to let go of an ideal and a belief in someone because what exacerbates the disappointment of finding out they weren't who they presented themselves to be, is the betrayal of it.” - Donna Lynn Hope

55. “A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied 10 minutes later" Gen. George Patton,” - Walter Danley

56. “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

57. “By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, then being on somebody else's.” - Jeanette Winterson

58. “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

59. “Let’s agree to be honest from the start. I would rather feel the disappointment that comes with the realization that we are incompatible than to feel the pain and betrayal that comes with finding out that you're full of crap.” - Steve Maraboli