41 Quotes About Betrayal and Trust

Feeling the effects of a betrayal or lost trust can leave you full of feelings of regret. These quotes about betrayal and trust will remind you of its devastating effects.

“All a man can betray is his conscience.”

“All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself.”

“All trust involves vulnerability and risk, and nothing would count as trust if there were no possibility of betrayal.”

“Be cautious of who is holding your quarters because as soon as they get four quarters they will change them for a dollar.”

“Betrayal can only happen if you love.”

“Betrayal does that betrays the betrayer.”

“Betrayal is about learning not to idealize external sources.”

“Betrayal is common for men with no conscience.”

“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.”

“Don’t saw off the branch you’re sitting on.”

“Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.”

“Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It’s what unites us. The trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens. Don’t let them take that from you.”

“For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.”

“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”

“He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.”

“I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my body.”

“I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray.”

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”

“It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.”

“It was a mistake, you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.”

“It’s hard to tell who has your back, from who has it long enough just to stab you in it….”

“It’s very easy to get a boy to leave the room. It’s much harder to get him to leave your thoughts.”

“It’s particularly hard to take being stabbed in the back close to home. There’s always a feeling of betrayal when people of your own group oppose you.”

“Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.”

“Pleasure which must be enjoyed at the expense of another’s pain, can never be such as a worthy mind can fully delight in.”

“Sometimes blood isn’t thicker than water and family will cross you quicker than strangers.”

“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”

“The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.”

“The worst pain in the world goes beyond the physical. Even further beyond any other emotional pain one can feel. It is the betrayal of a friend.”

“There are three signs of a hypocrite: when he speaks he speaks lies, when he makes a promise he breaks it, and when he is trusted he betrays his trust.”

“There is always a lesson of a lifetime to learn in every betrayal.”

“There is no greater blessing than a family hand that lifts you from a fall; but there is not lower curse than a family hand that strikes you when you’re down.”

“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.”

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”

“Trust can take years to build, but only a second to break.”

“Trust is not established in the absence of betrayal, but in those whose betrayal is least.”

“We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.”

“When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.”

“You can’t betray yourself too often, or you become somebody else.”

“You know that you have been stabbed when you feel the deep pain of betrayal.”

There are many factors to consider when it comes to embracing another that has broken your trust or betrayed you.