274 Quotes by Rebecca West

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

There are acacias, a graceful species amusingly devitalized by sentimentality, this kind drooping its leaves with the grace of a young widow bowed in controllable grief, this one obscuring them with a smooth silver as of placid tears. They please, like the minor French novelists of the eighteenth century, by suggesting a universe in which nothing cuts deep.

Most magazines have that look of being predestined to be left which one sees on the faces of the women whose troubles bring them to the Law Courts.

I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.

Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.

For some reason a nation feels as shy about admitting that it ever went forth to war for the sake of more wealth as a man would about admitting that he had accepted an invitation just for the sake of the food. This is one of humanity's most profound imbecilities, as perhaps the only justification for asking one's fellowmen to endure the horrors of war would be the knowledge that if they did not fight they would starve.

International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.

I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.