Betrayal
breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence
Betrayal (or treachery) is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. Often betrayal is the act of supporting a rival group, or it is a complete break from previously decided upon or presumed norms by one party from the others. Someone who betrays others is commonly called a traitor or betrayer. Betrayal is also a commonly used literary element and is often associated with or used as a plot twist.
Quotes
edit- Any form of real betrayal can be final. Dishonesty can be final. Selling out is final. But you are just talking now. Death is what is really final.
- Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream (1970), Pt. 3: At Sea, Section 19.
- Look. What happened, that was just business. Personal betrayal I can understand. But never betrayal of one’s people you serve, or your country.
- Nguyen Khanh, as quoted in "A Bag of Earth, A Promise To Keep" (28 April 2005), Viet Weekly
- Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace.
- Anthony Minghella, The English Patient (1996); based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje.
- Every great work of art … is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life.
- Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003).
- Just for the record, the weather today is partly suspicious with chances of betrayal.
- Chuck Palahniuk, Diary (2003).
- On this tenth day of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, noting Italy's declaration of war against France on that day, during the commencement address at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (June 10, 1940); reported in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 (1941), p. 263.
- I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, Scene IV (Macbeth).
- The act of treachery is an art, but the traitor himself is a piece of shit.
- Mike Tyson "Boxing: Tyson's complicated world", Paul Hayward, The Telegraph, (01 May 2002).