Treason

In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation or state. A person who betrays the nation of their citizenship and/or reneges on an oath of loyalty and in some way willfully cooperates with an enemy, is considered to be a traitor. In the United States Of America, treason is defined at Article 3 of the Constitution.

Sourced

• 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, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act I, scene 1.

• This principle is old, but true as fate,
  Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.
  • Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore (1604), Part I, Act IV, scene 4.

• The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
  • T. S. Eliot in Murder in the Cathedral (1935).

• If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
  • E. M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy (1951).

• Rebellion must be managed with many swords; treason to his prince's person may be with one knife.
  • Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Prophane State (1642), The Traitor.

• Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
  Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
  • Sir John Harington, Epigrams, Book iv, Epistle 5. Compare: "Prosperum ac felix scelus/ Virtus vocatur" ("Successful and fortunate crime/ is called virtue"), Seneca, Herc. Furens, ii. 250.

• Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence
  With vizor'd falsehood and base forgery?
  • John Milton, Comus (1637), line 697.

• Oh, colder than the wind that freezes
  Founts, that but now in sunshine play'd,
  Is that congealing pang which seizes
  The trusting bosom, when betray'd.
  • Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), The Fire Worshippers.

• Oh, for a tongue to curse the slave
  Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
  Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
  And blasts them in their hour of might!
  • Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), The Fire-Worshippers.

• If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you will eventually be accused of treason.
  • Mort Sahl, "Live at the hungry i" (1960 comedy album).

• The man was noble,
  But with his last attempt he wiped it out:
  Destroy'd his country, and his name remains
  To the ensuing age abhorr'd.
  • William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act V, scene 3, line 145.

• Though those that are betray'd
  Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
  Stands in worse case of woe.
  • William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act III, scene 4, line 87.

• 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, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act III, scene 2, line 52.

• Treason is but trusted like the fox
  Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and locked up,
  Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act V, scene 2, line 9.

• Some guard these traitors to the block of death;
  Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act IV, scene 2, line 122.

• 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 hoop at them.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act II, scene 2, line 105.

• Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep;
  And in his simple show he harbours treason.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act III, scene 1, line 53.

• To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master,
  And cried "all hail!" whereas he meant all harm.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 7, line 33.

• Et tu Brute! Then fall, Cæsar!
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act III, scene 1, line 77.

• Know, my name is lost;
  By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act V, scene 3, line 121.

• Tellest thou me of "ifs"? Thou art a traitor:
  Off with his head!
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 4, line 77. "Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!" As altered by Colley Cibber.

• Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging the losers.
  • Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards' musical 1776 (character of Benjamin Franklin)

• All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if the nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.
  • Dame Rebecca West, "The Meaning of Treason" (Revised edition, Penguin Books, 1965), Conclusion, p. 413.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 811-12.

• Nemo unquam sapiens proditori credendum putavit.
  • No wise man ever thought that a traitor should be trusted.
  • Cicero, Orationes In Verrem, II. 1. 15.

• Treason is not own'd when 'tis descried;
  Successful crimes alone are justified.
  • John Dryden, Medals, line 207.

• 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, Arnold at Stillwater.

• 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, Arnold's Departure.

• Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
  Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
  • Sir John Harrington, Epigrams, Book IV, Epigram V.

• Judas had given them the slip.
  • Matthew Henry, Commentaries, Matthew, XXII.

• Tarquin and Cæsar 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, speech (1765).

• The man who pauses on the paths of treason,
  Halts on a quicksand, the first step engulfs him.
  • Aaron Hill, Henry V, Act I, scene 1.

• For while the treason I detest,
  The traitor still I love.
  • John Hoole, Metastatio, Romulus and Hersilia, Act I, scene 5.

• Ipsa se fraus, etiamsi initio cautior fuerit, detegit.
  • Treachery, though at first very cautious, in the end betrays itself.
  • Livy, Annales. XLIV. 15.

• 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, On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves near Washington.

• He [Cæsar] loved the treason, but hated the traitor.
  • Plutarch, Life of Romulus.

Unsourced

• America's state religion, is patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that "treason" is morally worse than murder or rape.
  • William Blum

• Bad literature is a form of treason.
  • Joseph Brodsky

• Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.
  • Edward Coke

• I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
  • Samuel Johnson

• In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.
  • Samuel Adams

• Ingratitude is treason to mankind.
  • James Thomson

• New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.
  • George Bernard Shaw

• Pity is treason.
  • Maximilien Robespierre

• Truth is a trust, [whereas] falsehood [is] treason.
  • Abu Bakr