Last Updated on August 9, 2024
One of the most hurtful things someone can ever do to you is break your trust. Whether it’s in friendship or in love, people need to trust one another in order to have a harmonious, sustaining relationship. That feeling of security and warmth simply cannot exist with deceit, disloyalty, or lies.
How People Respond To Betrayal
Individuals will have different responses to betrayal.
For some, they will practice blind faith and refuse to believe that they have been deceived. Even if there’s evidence to prove it, they will turn a blind eye because they can’t face the feelings that go with acceptance: the nagging doubt, the sleepless nights, and crippling loneliness.
Then there are those who become suspicious of everything, and everyone. For these people, they have experienced enough betrayal to never fully trust anyone again. They’re always hyper vigilant, alert to the prospect that their friend or coworker could be cheating on them, or talking behind their back.
Lastly, there’s the more realistic approach: the view that everyone is capable of betrayal. This is recognizing that even the most faithful of people can fall, especially in their weakest moments.
How To Trust Again
Let time and compassion slowly mend these broken relationships. Don’t think of it in terms of trusting again. Of course you won’t, especially since you’ve been betrayed many times over. Instead, find it in your heart to forgive yourself. Then, slowly when you are ready, you can forgive others, too.
Betrayal can be a cold and cruel thing. But don’t let it harden your heart to life’s other joys. Hopefully, these betrayal quotes and sayings will guide you in the right direction – towards empathy.
Sad Betrayal Quotes
1. “Be careful to whom you trust. Betrayal always come from the persons you trusted.” – Anurag Prakash Ray
2. “If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.” – Unknown
3. “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.” – Wes Fessler
4. “The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.” – Aldrich Ames
5. “It was a mistake”, you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.” – David Levithan
6. ”Life has taught me that you can’t control someone’s loyalty. No matter how good you are to them, doesn’t mean that they will treat you the same. No matter how much they mean to you, doesn’t mean that they’ll value you the same. Sometimes the people you love the most, turn out to be the people you can trust the least.” – Trent Shalton
7. ”Betrayal is never easy to handle and there is no right way to accept it.” – Christine Feehan
8. “Better to have an enemy who slaps you in the face than a friend who stabs you in the back.” – Unknown
9. “Love and marriage are wonderful arenas in which to place a character. We are most likely to risk our morals and beliefs while in love. Betrayal gives tremendous insights into a character as well.” – Anita Shreve
10. ”Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That’s really where failure comes.” – Tom Cochrane
11. “It’s funny how sometimes the people you’d take a bullet for are the ones behind the trigger.” – Unknown
12. “I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my body.” – Veronica Roth
13. ”If you’re betrayed, release disappointment at once. By that way, the bitterness has no time to take root.” – Toba Beta
14. ”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.” – Heather Brewer
15. ”Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” – Arthur Miller
16. ”I have been stabbed in the back by those I needed the most. I’ve been lied to by those I love. And I have felt alone when I couldn’t afford to be. But at the end of the day, I had to learn to be my own best Friend, because there’s going to be days where no one is going to be there for me but myself.” – Unknown
17. ”Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” – Proverbs 27:6
18. “There is always a lesson of a lifetime to learn in every betrayal.” – Edmond Mbiaka
19. ”Betray a friend and you’ll often find you have ruined yourself.” — Aesop
20. “I’m not crying because of you; you’re not worth it. I’m crying because my delusion of who you were was shattered by the truth of who you are.” – Steve Maraboli
21. ”Sometimes, instead of being hurt, you should look at betrayal as a gift. It makes it that much easier to sweep it up and toss it out with the rest of the trash. And why is that you ask? Because trash starts to stink…and when it does, it has no more value in your life.” – Donna Schoenrock
22. ”One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go. If you’ve been hurt until it breaks your soul into pieces, your perspective in life will definitely change, and no one and nothing in this world could ever hurt you again.” – Mareez Reyes
23. ”Forgive yourself for the blindness that put you in the path of those who betrayed you. Sometimes a good heart doesn’t see the bad.” – Unknown
24. “Some people are willing to betray years of friendship just to get a little bit of the spotlight.” – Lauren Conrad
25. ”An honest enemy is better than a false friend. When in doubt, pay more attention to what people do and less to what they say. Actions not only speak louder than words, they are more difficult to fake.” – Zero Dean
26. ”I’m mature enough to forgive you, but I’m not dumb enough to trust you again.” – Unknown
27. “Love comes to those who still hope after disappointment, who still believe after betrayal, and who still love after they’ve been hurt.” – Unknown
28. ”I may be many things, and there are even more I am not, but I would never do to you what you did to me, and I think that says a lot.” – Jessica Katoff
29. ”The knives of betrayal and drama cut deep and hurt… but they also trim away the nonsense and reveal your true friends.” – Steve Maraboli
30. “The worst feeling in the world is knowing you’ve been used and lied to by someone you trusted.” – Unknown
31. “It’s hard to tell who has your back, from who has it long enough just to stab you in it….” ? Nicole Richie
32. ”For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.” – Suzanne Collins
33. ”One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though … betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” – Steven Deitz
34. ”He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.” – Sophocles
35. ”Pleasure which must be enjoyed at the expense of another’s pain, can never be such as a worthy mind can fully delight in.” – Samuel Johnson
36. ”Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.” – Jean Genet
37. ”Backstabbers specialize in saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person.” – Les Parrott
38. ”False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us when we cross into the shade.” – Christian Nevell Bovee
39. ”Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.” – Eminem
40. “It’s not just about who’s being real to your face, but also about who’s being real behind your back.” – Unknown
41. “Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.” – Barbara Kingsolver
42. “We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.” – Tennessee Williams
43. “Trust is not established in the absence of betrayal, but in those whose betrayals least.” – Wes Fessler
44. “Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.” – Terry Goodkind
45. “All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself.” – Martin Luther
46. ”Always sleep with one eye open. Never take anything for granted. Your best friends might just be your enemies.” – Sara Shepard
47. ”Keep talking about me behind my back, and watch God keep blessing me in front of your face.” – Unknown
48. “Don’t fear the enemy that attacks you, but the fake friend that hugs you.” – Unknown
49. ”Trust is a fragile thing once earned, it affords us tremendous freedom but once trust is lost, it can be impossible to recover of course the truth is, we never know who we can trust. Those we’re closest to can betray us.” – Mary Alice Young
50. ”You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise.” – Maya Angelou
51. “A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.” – Cally, Blakes 7, “Mission to Destiny”
52. “We can tolerate our true enemies, but not the back stabbers and betrayers.” – Sanji Paul Arvind
53. “I am grateful to those who have betrayed me… They thought they were just stabbing me in the back, but they were also cutting me free from their poisonous life.” – Steve Maraboli
54. “To understand loyalty you need to experience betrayal.” – Thomas, Joy Division (2006)
55. “Never trust on unknown hands, you will never know how they stand by you and back stab with their brains.” – Debolina Bhawal
56. “When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer
57. “Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.” – Johann Caspar Lavater
58. “One of the favorite pastimes of Backstabbers is recounting slights and grievances they’ve carried for years.” – Les Parrott
59. “People on the top seldom have enemies, it’s most often the flattering ‘friend’ who stab them in the back.”? Amit Abraham
60. “A stab from a friend cuts deeper than a stab from a foe.”? Amit Kalantri
61. “An open enemy is better than a false friend.” – Greek Proverb
62. “The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.” – Unknown
63. “They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.” – Joseph Conrad
64. “Nothing hurts more than being disappointed by the single person you thought would never hurt you.” – Unknown
65. “You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead.” – Anais Nin
66. ”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.” – Sherrilyn Kenyon
67. ”To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.” – Malcolm X
68. ”It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” – William Blake
69. ”All trust involves vulnerability and risk, and nothing would count as trust if there were no possibility of betrayal.” – Robert C. Solomon
70. ”You know that you have been stabbed when you feel the deep pain of betrayal.” – Les Parrott
71. ”He who advises you to be reserved to your friends wishes to betray you without witnesses.” – Don J. Manuel
72. “Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.” – William Penn
73. “When someone breaks your trust don’t feel stupid for trusting them. You didn’t do anything wrong they’re just an untrustworthy person.” – Sonya Parker
74. ”In life you can easily trust someone, but once the trust is broken it’s very difficult to trust anyone again.” – Sushan Sharma
75. ”Time alone can prove the worth of friendship. As time goes by we lose the false ones and keep the best. True friends stay when all the rest are gone.” – Ritu Ghatourey
