38+ Whittaker Chambers Quotes On Religion, War And Education

Whittaker Chambers was an American writer, editor, and former Soviet spy. He is best known for his testimony against former colleague Alger Hiss, which helped to expose Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1940s. Chambers wrote the autobiography Witness, which detailed his experience as a communist and his conversion to Christianity. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Whittaker Chambers on religion, war, education.

Top 10 Whittaker Chambers Quotes

1. 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.
2. In 1937, I began, like Lazarus, the impossible return.
3. The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power.
4. I see in Communism the focus of the concentrated evil of our time.
5. The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.
6. Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.
7. 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.
8. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists.
9. Anybody looking for a quiet life has picked the wrong century to born in.
10. I do not know any way to explain why God's grace touches a man who seems unworthy of it.

Whittaker Chambers Short Quotes

• The Communist vision is the vision of man without God.
• Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible.
• Man without mysticism is a monster.
• Every man is crucified upon the cross of himself.
• [It is b]etter to die on the losing side than to live under communisim.

Whittaker Chambers Quotes About Faith

Human societies, like human beings, live by faith and die when faith dies. — Whittaker Chambers

At issue in the Hiss Case was the question whether this sick society, which we call Western civilization, could in its extremity still cast up a man whose faith in it was so great that he would voluntarily abandon those things which men hold good, including life, to defend it. — Whittaker Chambers

A witness, in the sense that I am using the word, is a man whose life and faith are so completely one that when the challenge comes to step out and testify for his faith, he does so, disregarding all risks, accepting all consequences. — Whittaker Chambers

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 Chambers

On a scale personal enough to be felt by all, but big enough to be symbolic, the two irreconcilable faiths of our time - Communism and Freedom - came to grips in the persons of two conscious and resolute men. — Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers Quotes About Communism

A Communist breaks because he must choose at last between irreconcilable opposites-God or Man, Soul or Mind, Freedom or Communism. — Whittaker Chambers

It is popular to call it a crisis of the Western world. It is in fact a crisis of the whole world. Communism, which claims to be a solution of the crisis, is itself a symptom and an irritant of the crisis. — Whittaker Chambers

The satellite revolt was not sparked from the West. It was sparked by Communism itself. — Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers Quotes About Life

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 Chambers

Life is not worth living for which a man is not prepared to die at any moment. — Whittaker Chambers

When you understand what you see, you will no longer be children. You will know that life is pain, that each of us hangs always upon the cross of himself. And when you know that this is true of every man, woman and child on earth, you will be wiser. — Whittaker Chambers

Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy - not defeat or death. — Whittaker Chambers

A nation's life is about as long as its reverential memory — Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers Famous Quotes And Sayings

My children, as long as you live, the shadow of the Hiss Case will brush you. In every pair of eyes that rests on you, you will see pass, like a cloud passing behind a woods in winter, the memory of your father - dissembled in friendly eyes, lurking in unfriendly eyes. — Whittaker Chambers

... my century.. is unique in the history of men for two reasons. It is the first century since life began when a decisive part of the most articulate section of mankind has not merely ceased to believe in God, but has deliberately rejected God. And it is the century in which this religious rejection has taken a specifically political form. — Whittaker Chambers

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 Chambers

For in this century, within the next decades, will be decided for generations whether all mankind is to become Communist, whether the whole world is to become free, or whether, in the struggle, civilization as we know it is to be completely destroyed or completely changed. — Whittaker Chambers

Crime, violence, infamy are not tragedy. Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy - not defeat or death. That is why the spectacle of tragedy has always filled men, not with despair, but with a sense of hope and exaltation. — Whittaker Chambers

No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design. — Whittaker Chambers

A man is not primarily a witness against something. That is only incidental to the fact that he is a witness for something. — Whittaker Chambers

True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness. — Whittaker Chambers

Trotsky was essentially a Western mind. Lenin was a Russian, and unlike most other revolutionary exiles, wherever he went he was a Russian. — Whittaker Chambers

It is in fact no exaggeration to say that we live in terror that Senator McCarthy will one day make some irreparable blunder that will play directly into the hands of our common enemy and discredit the whole anti-Communist effort for a long while to come. — Whittaker Chambers

Life Lessons by Whittaker Chambers

1. Whittaker Chambers taught us the importance of standing up for what you believe in, regardless of the consequences. He showed us that courage and conviction can be a powerful force for good in the world.
2. Chambers also demonstrated the power of redemption and the possibility of transformation. His story of personal transformation is a reminder that we can all change our lives for the better.
3. Finally, Chambers' work reminds us of the importance of truth-telling and the moral courage it takes to stand up and speak out against injustice and oppression.