I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.
Whittaker ChambersRead
On that road of the informer, it is always night. I cannot ever inform against anyone without feeling something die within me. I inform without pleasure, because it is necessary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the moral and emotional burden of informing on others, highlighting the internal conflict it creates.
Whittaker Chambers expresses the profound sadness and moral conflict associated with being an informer, suggesting that the act of betraying others leads to a loss of one's own integrity and spirit. He portrays informing as a necessary yet painful duty, one that strips a person of joy and leaves a lasting emotional scar.
Themes
InformingBetrayalMoral BurdenConflictDuty
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on ethics, one might quote this to illustrate the emotional cost of betrayal.
More from Whittaker Chambers
All quotes →Men who sincerely abhorred the word Communism in the pursuit of common ends found that they were unable to distinguish Communists from themselves…. For men who could not see that what they firmly believed was liberalism added up to socialism could scarcely be expected to see what added up to Communism. Any charge of Communism enraged them precisely because they could not grasp the differences between themselves and those against whom it was made.
Whittaker ChambersRead
At issue was the question whether this man's faith could prevail against a man whose equal faith it was that this society is sick beyond saving, and that mercy itself pleads for its swift extinction and replacement by another.
Whittaker ChambersRead
Life is not worth living for which a man is not prepared to die at any moment.
Whittaker ChambersRead
Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrikes. Guilt does. Innocence is a mighty shield, and the man or woman covered by it, is much more likely to answer calmly: 'My life is blameless. Look into it, if you like, for you will find nothing.' That is the tone of innocence.
Whittaker ChambersRead
The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.
Whittaker ChambersRead
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