Betrayal

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

 * 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).