Rebecca West Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

  Rebecca West

  Communication, Writing, Mind

  22 Copy quote

• Idiocy is the female defect ... It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy.

  Rebecca West

  Males, Female, Idiocy

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.7, Open Road Media

  10 Copy quote

• I have no faith in the sense of comforting beliefs which persuade me that all my troubles are blessings in disguise.

  Rebecca West

  Blessing, Comforting, Belief

  Rebecca West (2005). “Woman as Artist and Thinker”, p.23, iUniverse

  8 Copy quote

• We think in youth that our bodies are identical to ourselves and have the same interests, but discover later in life that they are heartless companions who have been accidentally yoked with us, and who are as likely as not, in our extreme sickness or old age, to treat us with less mercy than we would have received at the hands of the worst bandits.

  Rebecca West

  Thinking, Later In Life, Hands

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.382, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Unhappy people are dangerous.

  Rebecca West

  People, Unhappy, Unhappiness

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Judge”, p.231, Open Road Media

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• I really write to find out what I know about something and what is to be known about something.

  Rebecca West

  Writing, Knows, Known

  5 Copy quote

• Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas.

  Rebecca West

  Book, Ideas, Numbers

  4 Copy quote

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

  Rebecca West

  Powerful, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.175, Open Road Media

  8 Copy quote

• Submission to poverty is the unpardonable sin against the body. Submission to unhappiness is the unpardonable sin against the spirit.

  Rebecca West

  Body, Poverty, Spirit

  Rebecca West (2011). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-17”, p.42, Open Road Media

  5 Copy quote

• art is at least in part a way of collecting information about the universe.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Information, Way

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.52, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Marriage had certain commercial advantages. By it the man secures the exclusive right to the woman's body and by it, the woman binds the man to support her during the rest of her life.... A more disgraceful bargain was never struck.

  Rebecca West

  Men, Support, Body

  19 Copy quote

• The earth itself is slightly resistant to routine.

  Rebecca West

  Routine, Earth

  5 Copy quote

• I find to my astonishment that an unhappy marriage goes on being unhappy when it is over.

  Rebecca West

  Divorce, Unhappy, Happy Marriage

  12 Copy quote

• Women know the damnation of charity because the habit of civilization has always been to throw them cheap alms rather than give them good wages.

  Rebecca West

  Civilization, Giving, Justice

  1912 'The Personal Service Association: Work for Idle Hands to Do', in The Clarion,13 Dec.

  4 Copy quote

• Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Women, Criticism

  Rebecca West (1957). “The Court and the Castle: Some Treatments of a Recurrent Theme /$Rebecca West”

  21 Copy quote

• Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations.

  Rebecca West

  Pain, Night, Mad

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.818, Open Road Media

  19 Copy quote

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

  Rebecca West

  Passion, Destiny, Soul

  Rebecca West (1982). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”

  22 Copy quote

• Once a secret society establishes itself within an open society, there is no end to the hideous mistrust it must cause.

  Rebecca West

  Secret, Causes, Ends

  The New Meaning of Treason (1966). West here was referring to the work of Communists seeking to undermine democracies.

  13 Copy quote

• the law, like art, is always vainly racing to catch up with experience.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Law, Racing

  Rebecca West (2011). “The Meaning of Treason”, p.93, Open Road Media

  7 Copy quote

• The memory, experiencing and re-experiencing, has such power over one's mere personal life, that one has merely lived.

  Rebecca West

  Memories, Power, Mere

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.159, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• The mind is its own enemy, that fights itself with the innumerable pliant and ineluctable arms of the octopus.

  Rebecca West

  Fighting, Octopus, Mind

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.839, Open Road Media

  23 Copy quote

• It is astonishing how the human animal survives its misfortunes.

  Rebecca West

  Animal, Survival, Humans

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• A good cause has to be careful of the company it keeps.

  Rebecca West

  Causes, Be Careful, Company

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• Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

  Rebecca West

  Life, Struggle, Adventure

  18 Copy quote

• Motherhood is neither a duty nor a privilege, but simply the way that humanity can satisfy the desire for physical immortality and triumph over the fear of death.

  Rebecca West

  Mom, Mother, Humanity

  14 Copy quote

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