Rebecca West Quotes - Page 3

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• 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

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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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• I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?

  Rebecca West

  People, Wonder, Novel

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• Birds sat on the telegraph wires that spanned the river as the black notes sit on a staff of music.

  Rebecca West

  Rivers, Bird, Black

  Rebecca West (2016). “The Return of the Soldier”, p.31, Xist Publishing

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• ... when the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They were at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients.

  Rebecca West

  Believe, Men, Ideas

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

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• Music is part of human life and partakes of the human tragedy. There is much more music in the world than is allowed to change into heard sounds and prove its point.

  Rebecca West

  Music, Tragedy, Sound

  Rebecca West (2010). “Family Memories: An Autobiographical Journey”, p.171, Open Road Media

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• I do not think women understand how repelled a man feels when he sees a woman wholly absorbed in what she is thinking, unless it is about her child, or her husband, or her lover. It ... gives one gooseflesh.

  Rebecca West

  Children, Husband, Men

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• Yes,” said Mamma, “this is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way of losing it. We love people, and we say that we are going to do more for them than friendship, but it makes such fools of us that we do far less, indeed sometimes what we do could be mistaken for the work of hatred.

  Rebecca West

  People, Common Sense, Giving

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Fountain Overflows”, p.275, Open Road Media

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• But once a culture develops sufficiently to become skeptical, the idea of censorship becomes less attractive. To suppress a book or a picture or a sculpture or a play or a film is a terrible act of aggression against the artist who created it. This is a miming of capital punishment; it destroys the life that has been emanated by a life.

  Rebecca West

  Book, Artist, Punishment

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• It would be no loss to the world if most of the writers now writing had been strangled at birth.

  Rebecca West

  Writing, Loss, Would Be

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• Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.

  Rebecca West

  Love, Real, Writing

  "The Art of Scepticism" (1952)

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• Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which life can be poured and lifted to the lips and be tasted.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Essence, Cups

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.36, Open Road Media

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• Margaret Thatcher has one great advantage - she is a daughter of the people and looks trim, as the daughter of the people desire to be. Shirley Williams has such an advantage over her because she's a member of the upper-middle class and can achieve the kitchen-sink revolutionary look that one cannot get unless one has been to a really good school.

  Rebecca West

  Daughter, School, Class

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• I've never been able to do just one draft. That seems a wonderful thing. Do you know anyone who can?

  Rebecca West

  Able, Wonderful, Knows

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• When we choose a god we choose one as much like ourselves as possible, or even more so!

  Rebecca West

  God

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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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• Destiny is another name for humanity's half-hearted yet persistent search for death. Again and again peoples have had the chance to live and show what would happen if human life were irrigated by continual happiness; and they have preferred to blow up the canals and perish of drought.

  Rebecca West

  Blow, Destiny, Names

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.545, 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 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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• 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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• 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.

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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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• 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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