Whittaker Chambers Quotes

47 Sourced Quotes

At issue in the Hiss Case was the question whether this sick society, which we call Western civilization, could in its extremity still cast up a man whose faith in it was so great that he would voluntarily abandon those things which men hold good, including life, to defend it.

Whittaker Chambers
Two faiths were on trial. Human societies, like human beings, live by faith and die when faith dies... At heart, the Great Case was this critical conflict of faiths; that is why it was a great case.

Whittaker Chambers
For in this century, within the next decades, will be decided for generations whether all mankind is to become Communist, whether the whole world is to become free, or whether, in the struggle, civilization as we know it is to be completely destroyed or completely changed.

Whittaker Chambers
A nation's life is about as long as its reverential memory.

Whittaker Chambers
When the train of history makes a sharp turn, said Lenin, the passengers who do not have a good grip on their seats are thrown off. Last week the Communist Limited had just about completed the dizzy turn from the Communazi Pact to the Battle of Britain, and U. S. literary liberals were spattered all over the right of way.

Whittaker Chambers
Trotsky was essentially a Western mind. Lenin was a Russian, and unlike most other revolutionary exiles, wherever he went he was a Russian.

Whittaker Chambers
In the 20th Century, treason became a vocation whose modern form was specifically the treason of ideas.

Whittaker Chambers
I do not know any way to explain why God's grace touches a man who seems unworthy of it.

Whittaker Chambers
The satellite revolt was not sparked from the West. It was sparked by Communism itself.

Whittaker Chambers
The Wizard of Oz (M. G. M.) should settle an old Hollywood controversy: whether fantasy can be presented on the screen as successfully with human actors as with cartoons.

Whittaker Chambers
True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness.

Whittaker Chambers
It is popular to call it a crisis of the Western world. It is in fact a crisis of the whole world. Communism, which claims to be a solution of the crisis, is itself a symptom and an irritant of the crisis.

Whittaker Chambers
The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.

Whittaker Chambers
The book begins with the clang of a cell door closing in a GPU prison. It ends with a shot in the back of the head in a murky passageway of the prison cellar. It moves with the speed, directness, precision and some of the impact of a bullet.

Whittaker Chambers
Conservatism is alien to the very nature of capitalism.

Whittaker Chambers
I see in Communism the focus of the concentrated evil of our time.

Whittaker Chambers
Yet, so strong is the hold which the insidious evil of Communism secures upon its disciples, that I could still say to someone at that time: "I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism."

Whittaker Chambers
My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear-those intricate, perfect ears. The thought passed through my mind: "No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design."

Whittaker Chambers
All children are afraid of the night; when they grow up, they are still afraid, but more afraid of admitting it.

Whittaker Chambers
Toscanini was hailing a great artist, but that voice was more than a magnificent personal talent. It was the religious voice of a whole religious people — probably the most God-obsessed (and man-despised) people since the ancient Hebrews.

Whittaker Chambers
Anybody looking for a quiet life has picked the wrong century to born in.

Whittaker Chambers
A man is not primarily a witness against something.

Whittaker Chambers
The last war simplified the balance of political forces in the world by reducing them to two. For the first time, it made the power of the Communist sector of mankind (embodied in the Soviet Union) roughly equal to the power of the free sector of mankind (embodied in the United States). It made the collision of these powers all but inevitable. For the world wars did not end the crisis. They raised its tensions to a new pitch. They raised the crisis to a new stage. All the politics of our time, including the politics of war, will be the politics of this crisis.

Whittaker Chambers
Life is not worth living for which a man is not prepared to die at any moment.

Whittaker Chambers
What statesmanship! What vision! What power! We have known nothing like it since my ancestor, Peter the Great, broke a window into Europe by overrunning the Baltic states in the 18th Century. Stalin has made Russia great again!

Whittaker Chambers