Rebecca West Quotes - Page 4

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There is one common condition for the lot of women in Western civilization and all other civilizations that we know about for certain, and that is, woman as a sex is disliked and persecuted, while as an individual she is liked, loved, and even, with reasonable luck, sometimes worshipped.

Rebecca West

Sex, Women, Civilization

Speech to the Fabian Society in 1928. "Dame Rebecca West Dies in London" by Linda Charlton, archive.nytimes.com. March 16, 1983.

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Man is a hating rather than a loving animal.

Rebecca West

Hate, Animal, Men

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.176, Open Road Media

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She did not suddenly start being disagreeable this afternoon, she was so good at it, she had evidently practised whatever are the scales and arpeggios of rudeness every day of her life.

Rebecca West

Afternoon, Rudeness, Scales

Rebecca West (2010). “The Fountain Overflows”, p.331, Open Road Media

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Those who foresee the future and recognize it as tragic are often seized upon by a madness which forced them to commit the very acts which make it certain that what they dread will happen.

Rebecca West

Future, Madness, Certain

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To make laws is a human instinct that arises as soon as food and shelter have been ensured, among all peoples, everywhere.

Rebecca West

Law, Shelter, Instinct

Rebecca West (2010). “The New Meaning of Treason”, p.25, Open Road Media

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The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy.

Rebecca West

Survival, Energy, Principles

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.146, Open Road Media

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Time spent in a casino is time given to death, a foretaste of the hour when one's flesh will be diverted to the purposes of the worm and not of the will.

Rebecca West

Gambling, Purpose, Flesh

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.41, Open Road Media

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The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.

Rebecca West

Adventure, Enough, Get Over

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She saw she had fallen into the hands of one of those doctors who have strayed too far from apparent in the direction of the soul.

Rebecca West

Doctors, Hands, Medicine

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The redemptive power of divine grace no longer seemed credible, nor very respectable in the arbitrary performance that was claimed for it.

Rebecca West

Grace, Arbitrary, Divine

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If it be ungentlemanly to kiss and tell, it is still further from gentlemanliness to pray and tell.

Rebecca West

Kissing, Praying, Stills

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Unfortunately, all gatherings convened for the betterment of the human lot show a tendency to gas themselves, and not with laughing-gas either.

Rebecca West

Laughing, Gathering, Tendencies

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There is a point, and it is reached more easily than is supposed, where interference with freedom of the arts and literature becomes an attack on the life of society.

Rebecca West

Art, Society, Literature

Bernard Causton, G. Gordon Young, Rebecca West (1930). “Keeping it dark: or, The censor's handbook”

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It is not possible that a just God should forgive people who are wicked because another person who was good endured agony by being nailed to a cross.

Rebecca West

Agony, People, Forgiving

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.475, Open Road Media

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I have never been able to write with anything more than the left hand of my mind; the right hand has always been engaged in something to do with personal relationships. I don't complain, because I think my left hand's power, as much as it has, is due to its knowledge of what my right hand is doing.

Rebecca West

Writing, Thinking, Hands

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I don't believe that to understand is necessarily to pardon, but I feel that to understand makes one forget that one cannot pardon.

Rebecca West

Forgiveness, Believe, Forget

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The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy.

Rebecca West

Struggle, Simple, Vote

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There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.

Rebecca West

Women, Talking, People

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.91, Open Road Media

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... there has never been a period in history when there have been necessary killings which has not been instantly followed by a period when there have been unnecessary killings.

Rebecca West

History, Unnecessary, Killing

Rebecca West (1928). “The strange necessity: essays by Rebecca West”

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All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

Rebecca West

Sleep, Men, Should Have

Rebecca West (2010). “The New Meaning of Treason”, p.182, Open Road Media

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All disgrace smells alike. Differences in ruin are only matters of degree.

Rebecca West

Smell, Differences, Degrees

Rebecca West (2010). “The Birds Fall Down”, p.151, Open Road Media

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Olive Schreiner is less a woman than a geographical fact. Just as one thinks of Egypt as a foreground for the Pyramids, so South Africa seems the setting of that warm, attractive, aggressive personality. Her work is far inferior to her.

Rebecca West

Thinking, Egypt, Pyramids

Rebecca West (1982). “The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, Not Avail

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works of art feel towards human beings exactly as we do towards ghosts. The transparency of spectres, the diffuseness in space which lets them drift through doors and walls, and their smell of death, disgust us not more than we disgust works of art by our meaninglessness, our diffuseness in time which lets us drift through three score years and ten without a quarter as much significance as a picture establishes instantaneously.

Rebecca West

Art, Wall, Doors

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Writers on the subject of August Strindberg have hitherto omitted to mention that he could not write. ... Strindberg, who was neither a good nor a wise man, had a stroke of luck. He went mad. He lost the power of inhibition. Everything down to the pettiest suspicion that the dog had been given the leanest mutton chop, poured out of his lips. Men of his weakness and sensuality are usually, from their sheer brutishness, unable to express themselves. But Strindberg was mad and articulate. That is what makes him immortal.

Rebecca West

Wise, Dog, Writing

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An audience proves its discipline by its capacity for stillness. Those who have never practiced continuous application to an exacting process cannot settle down to simple watching; they must chew gum, they must dig the peel off their oranges, they must shift from foot to foot, from buttock to buttock.

Rebecca West

Simple, Feet, Orange

Rebecca West (1982). “Black lamb and grey falcon: a journey through Yugoslavia”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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Born: December 21, 1892
Died: March 15, 1983
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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