“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”
Source: Long Goodbye
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Raymond Chandler 124
Novelist, screenwriter 1888–1959Related quotes
“Is a novel anything but a trap set for a hero?”
Source: Life is Elsewhere
“The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!”
In a Sweater Poorly Knit.
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“Trapped like a trap in a trap”
Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker
“The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.”
Life of Milton
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975), p. 25
“They get entangled in non-essentials and fall into the trap set by cleverer people.”
Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Who Stands Fast?, p. 4.
Context: The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil. The "reasonable" people's failure is obvious. With the best intentions and a naive lack of realism, they think that with a little reason they can bend back into position the framework that has got out of joint. In their lack of vision they want to do justice to all sides, and so the conflicting forces wear them down with nothing achieved. Disappointed by the world's unreasonableness, they see themselves condemned to ineffectiveness; they step aside in resignation or collapse before the stronger party.
Still more pathetic is the total collapse of moral fanaticism. Fanatics think that their single-minded principles qualify them to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull they rush at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; they exhaust themselves and are beaten. They get entangled in non-essentials and fall into the trap set by cleverer people.
