A Traitor Quotes & Sayings

The first and fiercest punishment ought to fall first on the traitor, second on the enemy. If I had but one bullet and I were faced by both an enemy and a traitor, I would let the traitor have it. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

On his deathbed he called my father to him and said, "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open — Ralph Ellison

He who is indifferent to the suffering of others is a traitor to that which is truly human. — Saadi

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? — Mikhail Lermontov

This book was written by a traitor to his class. It is dedicated to bigots everywhere. Ladies and gentlemen of the black shirts, I call upon you to unite, to strike with claws and kitchen pokers, to burn the grub-worms of equality's brood with sulfur and oil, to huddle together whispering about the silverfish in your basements, to make decrees in your great solemn rotten assemblies concerning what is proper, for you have nothing to lose but your last feeble principles. — William T. Vollmann

In America, the policeman is a working-class hero. In England, the policeman is a working-class traitor. — Martin Amis

A man who becomes used to deluding himself, who fails to face his own faults with revolutionary honesty and even lies to himself, is the most likely to become a traitor, since lying is the beginning of treachery. — Ashraf Dehghani

In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he. — Alexander Pushkin

My friend," he said, "there is no worse traitor than a small lapdog. The first thing I always do when I am in love with a woman is to give her one of these little dogs. This way, I can always discover whether there is someone more favored than myself. The test is infallible. As you saw just now, the dog wanted to bite me because I am a stranger, but when it saw you, it went mad with joy." Two days after this visit, Poniatowski left Russia. — Robert K. Massie

At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant, was the man after God's own heart? — Percy Bysshe Shelley

There were billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping him alive and healthy, and every one was a potential traitor and foe. — Joseph Heller

No path by chance but by plot, Further steps along the road of his father's ghost. The traitor to Lolth is sought By he who hates him most. The fall of a house, the fall of a spear, Puncture the Spider Queen's pride as a dart. And now a needle for Drizzt Do'Urden to wear 'Neath the folds of his cloak, so deep in his heart. A challenge, renegade of renegade's seed, A golden ring thee cannot resist! Reach, but only when the beast is freed From festering in the swirl of Abyss. Given to Lolth and by Lolth given That thee might seek the darkest of trails. Presented to one who is most unshriven And held out to thee, for thee shall fail! So seek, Drizzt Do'Urden, the one who hates thee most. A friend, and too, a foe, made in thine home that was first. There thee will find one feared a ghost Bonded by love and by battle's thirst. — R.A. Salvatore

truth is, I look upon both candidates in the same light; and should think myself a traitor to the constitution of my country, if I voted for either. If every elector would bring the same consideration home to his conscience, we should not have such reason to exclaim against the venality of pts.5 But we are all a pack of venal and corrupted rascals; so lost to all sense of honesty, and all tenderness of character, that, in a little time, I am fully persuaded, nothing will be infamous but virtue and public-spirit. — Tobias Smollett

After Rep. Martin Sweeney of Ohio delivered a scathing attack on the Roosevelt administration for allegedly using conscription as a way to get the United States into the war, Rep. Beverly Vincent of Kentucky, who was next to Sweeney, loudly muttered that he refused "to sit by a traitor." Sweeney swung at Vincent, who responded with a sharp right to the jaw that sent Sweeney staggering. It was, said the House doorkeeper, the best punch thrown by a member of Congress in fifty years. — Lynne Olson

This is a wrong course the Chinese comrades are trying to lead us on to, it is an opportunist road of vacillation and concessions to the Khrushchev traitor group which finds itself in grave difficulties, and is intriguing in order to escape defeat. — Enver Hoxha

All I can see when I look at him is a belt swinging toward Tobias, and the butt of a gun slamming into Caleb's jaw. I don't care that he hurt Caleb
I would have done it, too
but that he is simultaneously a man who knows how to hurt people and a man who parades around as the self-effacing leader of Abnegation, suddenly makes me so angry I can't see straight.
Especially because I chose him. I chose him over Tobias.
"Your brother is a traitor," says Marcus as we turn a corner. "He deserved worse. There's no need to look at me that way."
"Shut up!" I shout, shoving him hard into the wall. He is too surprised to push back. "I hate you, you know that! I hate you for what you did to him, and I am not talking about Caleb." I lean close to his face and whisper, "And while I may not shoot you myself, I will definitely not help you if someone tries to kill you, so you'd better hope to God we don't get into that situation. — Veronica Roth

The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason. — John Adams

I am not one of your repentant sinners, Kenneth. I have lived my life - God, what a life! - and as I have lived I shall die, unflinching and unchanged. Dare one to presume that a few hours spent in whining prayers shall atone for years of reckless dissoluteness? 'Tis a doctrine of cravens, who, having lacked in life the strength to live as conscience bade them, lack in death the courage to stand by that life's deeds. I am no such traitor to myself. — Rafael Sabatini

But even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did. — C.S. Lewis

My lover is dead.
And they think I killed him.
I'm running rogue.
Hell bent on both revenge and redemption. Whatever it takes, I'm going to finish a job that began nine months ago. An unauthorized assignment that turned horribly, devastatingly wrong. My miscalculation.
My fault.
My heart left shattered into incomplete pieces which will never wholly fit back together again.
But first I have to outsmart my former organization and the hired killer they've sent after me; a ghost from my past who knows my every move, who's been inside my head, my heart, my dreams and memories: Jaxson.
I'm the traitor, Kylie. The rogue mercenary, Jaxon's newest assignment. And this is our love story. — Michele Mannon

Hidden in the hollow Of His blessed hand, Never foe can follow, Never traitor stand; Not a surge of worry, Not a shade of care, Not a blast of hurry Touch the Spirit there. — Frances Ridley Havergal

He could not close his eyes and just walk by; that was a real monster his traitor mind had created, and it could really tear him apart. — Stephen King

Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels. — John Selden

I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come to know a God whose Son made prodigals the heroes of his stories and the trophies of his ministry. — Philip Yancey

A man is called a traitor, or liberator. A rich man is a theif or philanthropist. Is one a crusader or ruthless invader? It's all in which label is able to persist. — Gregory Maguire

She was a woman, a traitor, and a killer. Males and females wanted her. But I was the only one who ever could have loved her. — Denis Johnson

The man who tries to make the flag an object of a single party is a greater traitor to that flag than any man who fires at it. — David Lloyd George

You bring a traitor here, unbound? Is this a joke? Or have you elected to join her in her treasons?" "Um, hello?" I raised a hand. "Not a traitor, and the Queen told us where to find you. Or do you think that we're such major badasses that we fought our way through the knowne to come and loiter at you in an imposing fashion? Because I got to say I'm flattered. — Seanan McGuire

You can't imagine what it's like to be torn between darkness and light- to be a traitor no matter what move you make. If my grandmother and Marissa died tonight, it would be because I had stayed in the darkness too long, flirting with the idea of being Cedric's consigliere. If that happened, I could never live with myself- but if Cedric gave me the bite as he planned, I would be forced to live with it forever. That was the worst hell I could imagine. — Neal Shusterman

Oh what foul traitor in your midst could have called such a pestilence down upon the very, er, Shakrathly presence of his own beloved Emperor! For shame! — Dave Stone

Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted — Charles Dickens

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible ... — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Then Susan suggested a new dress. I reminded her that the Queen was very happy wearing her 1939 wardrobe, so why shouldn't I be? She said the Queen doesn't need to impress strangers - but I do. I felt like a traitor to crown and country; now decent woman has new clothes - but I forgot that the moment I saw myself in the mirror. — Mary Ann Shaffer

That's all right," said Edmund. "Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor. — C.S. Lewis

I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund.
"Aslan!" said Eustace. "I've heard that name mentioned several times since we joined the Dawn Treader. And I felt - I don't know what - I hated it. But I was hating everything then. And by the way, I'd like to apologise. I'm afraid I've been pretty beastly."
"That's all right," said Edmund. "Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor."
"Well, don't tell me about it, then," said Eustace. "But who is Aslan? Do you know him?"
"Well - he knows me," said Edmund. "He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. We've all seen him. Lucy sees him most often. And it may be Aslan's country we are sailing to. — C.S. Lewis

That cat was a traitor. And if by some miracle she lived through the night, he was getting downgraded to Tender Vitals. — J.R. Ward

Galen and Rayna are close."
I gasp. "How do you know that? I can't feel them." My heart turns traitor, beating like I just ran five miles uphill. It has nothing to do with sensing and everything to do with the mention of Galen's name.
"I'm a Tracker, Emma. I can sense them from almost across the world. Especially Rayna. And from the feel of things, Galen is flittering that cute little fin of his like crazy to get back to you. Rayna must be riding on his back."
"You can tell what she's doing?"
"I can tell how fast she's moving. No one can swim as fast as Galen, Rayna included. He must be pretty impatient to see you."
"Yeah. Impatient for me to change so he can have another royal subject to order around."
Toraf's laughter startles me, not because it's loud, but because his mood seems to swing around on an axis. "Is that what you think?" he says. — Anna Banks

You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze," I remembered. "The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise. We raised a lot of the dead. We saved Ethan Nakamura, who turned out to be a traitor. We raised the spirit of Pan, the lost one." Annabeth shook her head like she wanted me to stop. "You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand," I pressed on. "That wasn't Minos, like I'd thought. It was Nico. By choosing to be on our side, he saved us. And the child of Athena's final stand - that was Daedalus." "Percy - " "Destroy with a hero's final breath. That makes sense now. Daedalus died to destroy the Labyrinth. But what was the last - " "And lose a love to worse than death." Annabeth — Rick Riordan

The idea of a small circle, of an exalted and loyal sect, except with a traitor infiltrated at its core, an informant who's not foreign to the sect, but constitutes an essential part of its structure---this was the true organizational form of any small society. One must act knowing that there's a traitor infiltrated in the ranks. — Ricardo Piglia

My name is Asher Lev ... I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people; also, I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians, a blasphemous manipulator of modes and forms revered by Gentiles for two thousand years. — Chaim Potok

I am somewhat proud of this," Mab's cold voice said. "To be sure, the White Christ never suffered so long or so terribly as did this traitor. Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists. — Jim Butcher

Millions of Americans cannot tell you who lived at Mount Vernon or who wrote the Declaration of Independence - let alone the Emancipation Proclamation. But they know that to be 'a Benedict Arnold' is to be a traitor of the deepest dye - someone who coldly betrays not only a sacred cause but every moral scruple along the way. — Arthur L. Herman

For nearly thirty years the powerful propaganda machines of Stalinism worked furiously to expunge Trotsky's name from the annals of the revolution, or to leave it there only as the synonym for arch-traitor. To the present Soviet generation, and not only to it, Trotsky's life-story is already like an ancient Egyptian sepulchre which is known to have contained the body of a great man and the record, engraved in gold, of his deeds; but tomb-robbers and ghouls have plundered and left it so empty and desolate that no trace is found of the record it once contained. The work of the tomb-robbers has, in this present instance, been so persistent that it has strongly affected the views even of independent Western historians and scholars. — Isaac Deutscher

Robert Ashford possessed one of the key character flaws necessary to a traitor. He thought he was smarter than everyone else. This allowed the overeducated career bureaucrat to sell out his own country, because he believed he knew what was best for his nation and its people. — Brad Thor

A leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. In 1935, four hundred years after his death, More was canonized in the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI, and was later declared the patron saint of lawyers and statesmen — Thomas More

What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed?" said Black, with a terrible fury in his face. "Only innocent lives, Peter!"
"You don't understand!" whined Pettigrew. "He would have killed me, Sirius!"
"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU! — J.K. Rowling

Really, monsieur, I should regard you as a coward, and a traitor too, if I did not, with greater justice, regard you as a madman. — Alexandre Dumas

When the enemy enthusiastically embraces you, and the fellow countrymen bitterly reject you, it is hard not to wonder if you are, in fact, a traitor. — Ursula K. Le Guin

My heart is a traitor," the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. "It doesn't want me to go on." "That makes sense," the alchemist answered. "Naturally it's afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you've won." "Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?" "Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world." "You mean I should listen, even if it's treasonous?" "Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you'll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them. "You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow. — Paulo Coelho

You had to be into sport and, sad to say, I'm a traitor to my country because I don't have a sporting bone in my body. — Geoffrey Rush

Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I dunno why you hate us so much. I dunno why you hate me so much. I dunno why you're calling Guillory a traitor when he's the furthest thing from it. But don't call what you're doing justice. Don't talk about punishment and crimes. Whatever your agenda is, it passed 'justice' by long ago. — Addison Lane

First of all, you don't want me to get too hungry. Ever. I'm an ever worse bastard than normal and having starved for centuries, I'm not about to deprive myself again when I don't have to. Second, let me tell you something about your 'friends.' Deimos held me down while I was branded and then took me to the human realm where I was left with nothing. No clothes, no money. Not a damn thing to call my own. Hence the aforementioned starvation. A hundred years later, M'Ordant dumped my inside a Spartan prison camp and told the commander I was a traitor to their people. You don't really want to know what the Spartans did to people they thought betrayed them. D'Alerian had me put inside a Turkish prison in the fifteenth century where I was impaled after being tortured for three weeks. So you'll have to excuse me if I have a hard time feeling too sorry for them right now. At least no one's shoving a sharp spike up their asses. (Jericho) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

When I served in the Army, along the Iron Curtain we had a word for a person who absconds with information and provides it to another nation: traitor. We also had a name for a person who chooses to reveal secrets he had personally promised to protect: common criminal. — Mike Pompeo

law tends more and more to be grounded upon the maxim that every citizen is, by nature, a traitor, a libertine, and a scoundrel. In order to dissuade him from his evil-doing the police power is extended until it surpasses anything ever heard of in the oriental monarchies of antiquity. - H. L. MENCKEN, NOTES ON DEMOCRACY — Radley Balko

Today even the dimmest of capitalist can see that the centralized nation-state, so promising an idea a generation ago, has lost all credibility with the population. Anarchism now is the idea that has seized hearts everywhere, some form of it will come to envelop every centrally governed society ... If a nation wants to preserve itself, what other steps can it take, but mobilize and go to war? Central governments were never designed for peace. Their structure is line and staff, the same as an army. The national idea depends on war. A general European war, with ever striking worker a traitor, flags threatened, the sacred soils of homelands defiled, would be just the ticket to wipe Anarchism off the political map. The national idea would be reborn. One trembles at the pestilent forms that would rise up afterward, from the swamp of the ruined Europe. — Thomas Pynchon

Pain is itself a god: the taskmaster of life. Pain cracks the whip, and all that lives will move. To live is to be a slave to pain. — Matthew Woodring Stover

'Banished men should never speak their native tongue; it comes bitter from their mouth. And this language suits a traitor better, I think; drips off one's teeth like sugar-syrup.' — Ursula K. Le Guin

I made so many promises when I arrived here.
Now I'm not so sure. Now I'm worried. Now my mind is a traitor because my thoughts crawl out of bed every morning with darting eyes and sweating palms and nervous giggles that sit in my chest, build in my chest, threaten to burst through my chest, and the pressure is tightening and tightening and tightening
Life around here isn't what I expected it to be. — Tahereh Mafi

What a terrible man, I thought, worse than a traitor. At least a traitor betrays people by telling the truth. Uncle Zhu tried to save himself by telling lies. — Ji-li Jiang

In the face of brutality I was prudent. Before injustice I held my peace. I sacrificed the things in hand for the good of they hypothetical whole. I believed in the tongue instead of the fist. As an armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in the human soul I know now how wrong I was. I have been a traitor to myself and to my people. All that is not. Now is the time to act and to act quickly. Fight cunning with cunning and might with might — Carson McCullers

You can't kill an American Citizen without benefit of a trial."
"I can if you're on the list, traitor."
"LIST? What list? What the hell are you talking about?"
BLACK LIST, July 24 — Brad Thor

I knew you could be naive, but I never thought you were stupid. He's an Eye, Sophie. They kill our kind. What part of that don't you understand?"

All I could do was blink at him.

"And this one is worse than any of the others," he continued, "because he's technically one of us. He's a traitor to his own race, and you just keep letting him in and pushing...everyone else away." He looked up at me, what I saw in his eyes made me flunch. Cal was so good at hiding his emotions that I'd never realized...God, how could I have been such an idiot? — Rachel Hawkins

You damn fool. You realize, even if all your assumptions are correct-even then, you still have to steal the world's most coveted sword from the world's safest place then be pursued by the ultimate hunter until you reach the heart of an enemy country in the middle of a war in which any side will happily kill you as a traitor, a spy, a wytch, or all three?"
"I thought you'd like it. — Brent Weeks

It is very true. But even a traitor may mend. I have known one who did. — C.S. Lewis

This is not our home, Four. These humans are not our brothers and sisters. Everything we do here on Earth is for our real home, for our real brothers and sisters; for the Elders who sacrificed their lives to put us on that ship ...

If you don't have Lorien in your heart, then you should say so right now. I won't run around with a traitor. Our only goal is doing everything we can to be at full strength so we can defeat Setrakus Ra and his army. That's it. Got it?! — Pittacus Lore

Your Majesty would have a perfect right to strike off his head," said Peridan. "Such an assault as he made puts him on a level with assassins."
"It is very true," said Edmund. "But even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did." And he looked very thoughtful. — C.S. Lewis

No wise man ever thought that a traitor should be trusted. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

My phone buzzes, and I shut off YouTube so I can access my messages.

Logan: Just found the perfect xmas present for you in Boston.

A photo promptly appears, summoning a loud groan from my throat. The asshole sent me a pic of a novelty My Little Pony dildo. Damn thing is bright pink, with rainbow sparkles on the handle.

Logan: And it's rechargeable! U don't have to buy batteries. THAT'S handy!

Me: Hardy-har-har. You = comedian.

Then I message Grace: Tell your BF to stop being mean to me.

She texts back a smiley face. Traitor. — Elle Kennedy

Still putting out the O'Reilly fires of me being a traitor and using Casey's name dishonorably, my in-laws sent out a press statement disagreeing with me in strong terms; which is totally okay with me, because they barely knew Casey. We have always been on separate sides of the fence politically and I have not spoken to them since the election when they supported the man who is responsible for Casey's death. The thing that matters to me is that our family - Casey's dad and my other 3 kids are on the same side of the fence that I am. — Cindy Sheehan

The plain old Sam Vimes had fought back. He got rid of most of the plumes and the stupid tights, and ended up with a dress uniform that at least looked as though its owner was male. But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armourers had made a new, gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association. — Terry Pratchett

Varys appeared not long after Lord Jacelyn had left. "Men are such faithless creatures," he said by way of greeting. Tyrion sighed. "Who's the traitor today?" The eunuch handed him a scroll. "So much villainy, it sings a sad song for our age. Did honor die with your fathers? — George R R Martin

If one man in a hundred is a traitor, and I allow that knowledge to close my heart to the other ninety -nine, who is the winner then? — A.F.E. Smith

The wise words of a friend and guide rang in my head. 'How would you distinguish a true servant of God from a traitor? ... You should take especial notice of how a person speaks, not of other things, but of God. — Harry Blamires

Was the leaker in question, Ed Snowden, was he a traitor? — Michele Bachmann

She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the area with a cocky smile on her face. The smirk spread when the traitor met my gaze.
"No hello for your old friend?" she asked me. "Don't be rude Baby Face."
"Go to hell, Wynn. — Maria V. Snyder

I think we should probably get Vanessa out of the Quiet Box to help us. What do you guys say?'
'Absolutely,' Newel affirmed. 'Best idea I've heard all day.'
'I'll second that,' Doren said gladly.
Seth gave the satyrs a doubtful scowl. 'Wait a minute. You guys just think she's pretty.'
'I've been around a long time,' Newel said. 'Vanessa Santoro is not jut pretty.'
'He's right,' Doren agreed. 'She's walking dynamite. My pulse is rising just talking about her.'
'She also might be a traitor,' Seth stressed.
'The lethal temptress,' Newel said with relish. 'Even better.'
'It will definitely spice up the adventure,' Doren encouraged.
'I'm obviously talking to wrong guys,' Seth sighed.
'Believe me,' Newel said cockily. 'you're talking to the right guys. We've been chasing babes since the world was flat.'
Seth rolled his eyes. — Brandon Mull

Pick a side or create new one !
Otherwise be a coward or traitor. — Toba Beta

Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor — Andrew Johnson

Some people wouldn't see a traitor when they looked at me. Some people would see a survivor. Call me anything you like - I sleep fine at night. But you will look at me when you say it. Or I'll get so far in your face you'll be seeing me with your eyes closed. You'll be seeing me in your nightmares. I'll scorch myself on the backs of your eyelids. Get off my back and stay off it. I'm not the woman I used to be. If you want a war with me, you'll get one. Just try me. Give me an excuse to go play in that dark place inside my head. — Karen Marie Moning

To have a traitor for an ally is to have an enemy in waiting — Jacqueline Carey

I cannot be a traitor, since I never swore fealty to the English king. — William Wallace

The bare knowledge of God's will is inefficacious, it doth not better the heart. Knowledge alone is like a winter sun, which hath no heat or influence; it doth not warm the affections, or purify the conscience. Judas was a great luminary, he knew God's will, but he was a traitor. — Thomas Watson

Show me your memories of the kiss." I close my eyes. The heat creeps up my cheeks, which is silly because the sword was there when the kiss happened and saw the whole thing. So what if I'm curious about what he felt?
"Oh, come on. Do we have to do this again?"
Nothing.
"That last one was totally awful. I need a little comfort. It's just a small favor. Please?"
Nothing.
"Extra ribbons and bows for you," I try to sound like I mean it. "Maybe even sparkly makeup on the teddy bear."
Still nothing.
"Traitor." I know that's a funny statement since the sword is actually being loyal to Raffe but I don't care. — Susan Ee

Miron said, "Strange that men who wrote with what seemed deep Christian faith should turn traitor so easily!" Perhaps the answer was that in their writings Daianu and Ghinda praised Christ for the gifts He gives us - peace, love, salvation. A real disciple does not seek gifts but Christ Himself, and so is ready for self-sacrifice to the end. They were not followers of Jesus, but customers; when the Communists opened a shop next door with goods at lower prices, they took their business there. — Richard Wurmbrand

A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor. — Abraham Lincoln

The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father. — Saul Alinsky

People who criticize power in the Jewish community are regarded the way Ahab treated Elijah: You're a traitor. — Noam Chomsky

If you change your diet, someone will call you a traitor. — Amos Oz

If I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest; — William Shakespeare

When Khrushchev asked whether his brass hats would guarantee that keeping the missiles in Cuba would not bring about nuclear war, they looked at him, he later told Norman Cousins of the Saturday Review, an informal emissary between Kennedy and Khrushchev, "as though I were out of my mind or, what was worse, a traitor. So I said to myself, 'To hell with these maniacs.'"6 — Robert F. Kennedy

I'm the thing that the ISI fears the most. The spy who becomes a traitor willingly and embraces everything he's been trained to destroy. — Khalid Muhammad

They didn't beat me up too bad. I could tell they didn't want to put me in the hospital or anything. Mostly they just wanted to remind me that I was a traitor. And they wanted to steal my candy and the money. It wasn't much. Maybe ten bucks in coins and dollar bills. But that money, and the idea of giving it to poor people, had made me feel pretty good about myself. I was a poor kid raising money for other poor people. It made me feel almost honorable. But I just felt stupid and naive after those guys took off. — Sherman Alexie

In history as in life it is success that counts. Start a political upheaval and let yourself be caught, and you will hang as a traitor. But place yourself at the head of a rebellion and gain your point, and all future generations will worship you as the Father of their Country. — Hendrik Willem Van Loon

It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward. And now - — C.S. Lewis

Ah Franion, treason is loved of many, but the Traitor hated of all: unjust offences may for a time escape without danger, but never without revenge. — Robert Greene

When a writer is born into a family, Czeslaw Milosz once famously said, the family is finished. You could forget about having any more secrets. You could forget about hiding what you didn't want others to know. You were going to be exposed, hung out to air, and by a traitor from within. But later I wondered, Is it the family that's really finished or simply the writer's place within it? Could a family still be a family with parts missing? — Judith Freeman

Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. — Charles Dickens

So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every person a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them! — Swami Vivekananda

When I get kind of low, I'd think about a verse I learned at one time, when everybody was fighting me. It went something like this: He has no enemies, you say, My friend, the boast is poor. He who hath mingled in the fray Of duty that the brave endure Must have foes. If he has none, Small is the work he has done. He has hit no traitor on the hip, Has cast no cup from perjured lip, Has never turned the wrong to right, He's been a coward in the fight. — Studs Terkel