Rebecca West - Meaning of Treason (1947)

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Those who foresee the future and recognize it as tragic are often seized upon by a madness which forced them to commit the very acts which make it certain that what they dread will happen.

Rebecca West
To every man in the world there is one person of whom he knows little: whom he would never recognize if he met him walking down the street, whose motives are a mystery to him. That is himself.

Rebecca West
The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

Rebecca West
Human beings are mercifully so constituted as to be able to conceal from themselves what they intend to do until they are well into the doing of it.

Rebecca West
Having watched the form of our traitors for a number of years, I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

Rebecca West
All men should have a drop or two of treason in their veins, if the nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

Rebecca West
I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilisation. It's a lout's game.

Rebecca West
To make laws is a human instinct that arises as soon as food and shelter have been ensured, among all peoples, everywhere.

Rebecca West
Here lies the real terror in the international war of ideologies; that a city knows not whom it entertains.

Rebecca West
The law, like art, is always vainly racing to catch up with experience.

Rebecca West
Once a secret society establishes itself within an open society, there is no end to the hideous mistrust it must cause.

Rebecca West
Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own natures. Their right hands are in conflict with their left. Psychotics, and it is those who commit purposeless crimes and prefer death to life, are at war with their environment. Right and left hands strike against the womb that carries them.

Rebecca West