Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
Perhaps the sexual life is the great test. If we can survive it with charity to those we love and with affection to those we have betrayed, we needn't worry so much about the good and the bad in us. But jealousy, distrust, cruelty, revenge, recrimination ... then we fail. The wrong is in that failure even if we are the victims and not the executioners. Virtue is no excuse.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how our sexual lives and emotional connections challenge our moral qualities and virtues.
Graham Greene's quote illustrates the complexity of human relationships, especially in the context of sexuality. It suggests that the trials we face in our intimate lives are essential tests of our character, revealing whether we can maintain compassion towards those we care for, despite experiences of betrayal or hurt. Greene emphasizes that negative emotions like jealousy and revenge lead us to moral failure, and even when we are wronged, our response still defines our virtue.
Themes
SexualityRelationshipsBetrayalVirtueEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the complexities of love and betrayal, this quote can highlight the moral challenges we face.
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Graham GreeneRead
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
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