Those who betray an oath of loyalty and commitment are in…

“Roughly, religion is a community's costly and hard-to-fake commitment to a counterfactual and counterintuitive world of supernatural agents who master people's existential anxieties, such as death and deception.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 4
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

“People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Source: Giovanni's Room

“Incolore sighed. “The loyalty of the systematically betrayed. Is there anything sadder?””

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 21 (p. 378)

“Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 44
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

““A man like that thinks that fear can win loyalty.”
“Plenty of masters with a lash who can testify it works.”
“Don’t win loyalty, just obedience, and only while the lash is in the room.””

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 4 “La Tia” (p. 74).

“Master, go on, and I will follow thee
To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

“A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.”

Alexander Cockburn (1941–2012) Leftist journalist and writer

New Statesman and Society (8 February 1991).

“Then the spirits of our fallen comrades shall rise from their graves to thank all those whose courage and loyalty have now once more atoned for the sins committed in an hour of weakness against them and against our Volk. Let our avowal of faith on this day be a solemn oath: the war forced upon the Greater German Reich by the capitalist rulers of France and England must be transformed into the most glorious victory in German history!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech in the Berlin Zeughaus http://www.nommeraadio.ee/meedia/pdf/RRS/Adolf%20Hitler%20-%20Collection%20of%20Speeches%20-%201922-1945.pdf (March 10, 1940) p. 699
1940s

“The train of history makes sharp turns and those who are not skilled riders fall off the train.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in Dorothy Healey, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party (1993), p. 81.
Attributions
Variant: "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." Whittaker Chambers, The Revolt of the Intellectuals, TIME magazine, January 6, 1941.

“He also knew when to stop. In the fine art of deceit and personal advancement as in any other calling this is the hallmark of the master.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 31 “Reintroducing the Twins” (p. 173)

“Those who betray an oath of loyalty and commitment are in training to become a master of deceit and deception.”

Related quotes

Related topics