I see in Communism the focus of the concentrated evil of our time.

About Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chamberswas an American writer and intelligence agent. After early years as a Communist Party memberand Soviet spy (1932-1938), he defected from the Soviet underground (1938), worked for Time magazine (1939-1948), and then testified about the Ware Group in what became the Hiss case for perjury (1949-1950), often referred to as the trial of the century, all described in his 1952 memoir Witness.

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More quotes from 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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

The Communist vision is the vision of man without God.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

I do not know any way to explain why God’s grace touches a man who seems unworthy of it.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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 Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

Every man is crucified upon the cross of himself.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

I see in Communism the focus of the concentrated evil of our time.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

Political freedom is a political reading of the Bible.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

A nation’s life is about as long as its reverential memory.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

In 1937, I began, like Lazarus, the impossible return.

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Whittaker Chambers

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor

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

Defected Communist spy, writer, editor