| 33 Treason Quotes
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“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes |
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“Is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?”
Joseph Addison Quotes Source: Cato (act I, sc. 1)
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“No wise man ever thought that a traitor should be trusted.
[Lat., Nemo unquam sapiens proditori credendum putavit.]”
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) Quotes Source: Orationes In Verrem (II, 1, 15)
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“This principle is old, but true as fate,
Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.”
Thomas Dekker Quotes Source: The Honest Whore (pt. I, act IV, sc. 4)
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“Treason is not own'd when 'tis descried;
Successful crimes alone are justified.”
John Dryden Quotes Source: Medals (l. 207)
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“O that a soldier so glorious, ever victorious in fight,
Passed from a daylight of honor into the terrible night;
Fell as the mighty archangel, ere the earth glowed in space,
fell--
Fell from the patriot's heaven down to the loyalist's hell!”
Thomas Dunn English Quotes Source: Arnold at Stillwater
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“With evil omens from the harbour sails
The ill-fated ship that worthless Arnold bears;
God of the southern winds, call up thy gales,
And whistle in rude fury round his ears.”
Philip Freneau Quotes Source: Arnold's Departure
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“Rebellion must be managed with many swords; treason to his
prince's person may be with one knife.”
Thomas Fuller Quotes Source: The Holy and Profane States--The Traitor
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“Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
Sir John Harrington Quotes Source: Of Treason--Epigrams (bk. IV, ep. V)
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“Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus--Charles the First, his
Cromwell--and George the Third--("Treason!" shouted the Speaker)
may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most
of it.”
Patrick Henry Quotes Source: Speech
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“The man who pauses on the paths of treason,
Halts on a quicksand, the first step engulfs him.”
Aaron Hill Quotes Source: Henry V (act I, sc. 1)
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“For while the treason I detest,
The traitor still I love.”
John Hoole Quotes Source: Metastatio--Romulus and Hersilia (act I, sc. 5)
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“The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed;
Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod,
Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to
God.”
James Russell Lowell Quotes Source: On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves near Washington
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“He [Caesar] loved the treason, but hated the traitor.”
Plutarch Quotes Source: Life of Romulus
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“Thou know'st, great son,
The end of war's uncertain, but this certain,
That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name
Whose repetition will be dogged with curses,
Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,
But with his last attempt he wiped it out,
Destroyed his country; and his name remains
To th' ensuing age abhorred,' Speak to me son.
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honor,
To imitate the graces of the gods;
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' th' air,
And yet to change thy sulphur with a bolt
That should rive an oak.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: Coriolanus (Volumnia at V, iii)
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“Though those that are betrayed
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: Cymbeline (Imogen at III, iv)
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“And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dressed myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths
Even in the presence of the crowned king.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part I (King Henry)
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“Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;
For treason is but trusted like the fox,
Who, ne'er so tame, so cherished and locked up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part I (Worcester at V, ii)
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“Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part II (Lancaster at IV, ii)
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“Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,
And in his simple show he harbors treason.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: King Henry the Sixth, Part II (Suffolk at III, i)
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“Know my name is lost,
By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit;
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: King Lear (Edgar at V, iii)
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“Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them;
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: The Life of King Henry the Fifth (King Henry at II, ii)
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“Thou art a traitor.
Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear
I will not dine until I see the same.”
William Shakespeare Quotes Source: The Tragedy of King Richard the Third (King Richard at III, iv)
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“Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?”
Frank Moore Colby Quotes |
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“Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor." --infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.”
Wendell Phillips Quotes |
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Treason Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings
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