Quotes and Sayings about Secrecy
"Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government."
- Jeremy Bentham
(Related: Government, Being, Secrecy)
"In such a case secrecy must be absolute to be effective, and although mere vague curiosity induced many persons of my intimate acquaintance to ask to be allowed to just go in and have a peep, I never admitted anyone."
- Henry Bessemer
(Related: Acquaintance, Curiosity, Secrecy)
"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
- Niels Bohr
(Related: Democracy, Dictatorship, Secrecy)
"We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect."
- Sissela Bok
(Related: Power, Burden, Childhood, Delight, Experts, Mystery, Secrecy, Sense, Space)
"While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive."
- Sissela Bok
(Related: Deception, Secrecy)
"Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Beauty, Virtue, Goodness, Secrecy)
"Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news."
- John Le Carre
(Related: Truth, Performance, News, Public, Right, Secrecy)
"The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy."
- Karl Von Clausewitz
(Related: Secrecy)
"The sinner will not confess, nor will the priest receive his confession, if the veil of secrecy is removed."
- DeWitt Clinton
(Related: Confession, Secrecy, Will)
"But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath."
- Harry Houdini
(Related: Honor, Secrecy)
"Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it."
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Facts, Mystery, Secrecy, Suspicion, Will)
"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings."
- John F. Kennedy
(Related: Society, People, Open, Word)
"They work in secrecy. I can't get any information. You can't find out anything until they get out to the floor. And it's hard to lick em at that stage. They're a closed corporation. When they stick together, you can't lick em on the floor."
- John William McCormack
(Related: Work, Information, Secrecy)
"So far as I know, there were no pains taken to preserve secrecy on this subject; that is, I saw no attempt made to keep any of the inmates of the Convent in ignorance of the murder of children."
- Maria Monk
(Related: Children, Ignorance, Murder, Secrecy)
"Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of."
- Bill Moyers
(Related: Dream, Freedom, Secrecy)
"There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Lies, Nothing, Secrecy)
"Secrecy is the enemy of efficiency, but don't let anyone know it."
- Ric Ocasek
(Related: Efficiency, Enemy, Secrecy)
"In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind."
- Gilbert Parker
(Related: End, Guilt, May, Mind, Secrecy, Secrets)
"I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don't need a national ID card."
- Ron Paul
(Related: Government, Society, Purpose, Contradiction, Privacy, Secrecy)
"A diagnosis is burden enough without being burdened by secrecy and shame."
- Jane Pauley
(Related: Being, Burden, Secrecy, Shame)
"This persistence as private firms continued because it ensured the maximum of anonymity and secrecy to persons of tremendous public power who dreaded public knowledge of their activities as an evil almost as great as inflation."
- Carroll Quigley
(Related: Power, Knowledge, Evil, Inflation, Persistence, Public, Secrecy)
"Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state."
- Cardinal Richelieu
(Related: First, Secrecy, State)
"Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of the State."
- Duc De Richelieu
(Related: First, Secrecy, State)
"Life within the Kremlin was shrouded in impenetrable secrecy."
- Harrison Salisbury
(Related: Life, Secrecy)
"At that time we were very definitely told that under no circumstances should there be any secret chapters or any other secrecy in the life of the Party, but that everything should be done publicly."
- Fritz Sauckel
(Related: Life, Time, Circumstances, Party, Secrecy)
"There are many hands touching ballots after a voter drops his ballot into the ballot box. There is no guarantee of ballot secrecy for anyone, which makes the whole system vulnerable to intimidation and bribery."
- Bob Schaffer
(Related: Bribery, Secrecy)
"The higher the classification of secrecy, the quicker you will report it."
- George P. Shultz
(Related: Secrecy, Will)
"I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself."
- M. Night Shyamalan
(Related: Secrecy)
"Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession."
- Georg Simmel
(Related: Time, Men, Confession, Gossip, Secrecy, Temptation)
"Secrecy is thus, so to speak, a transition stadium between being and not-being."
- Georg Simmel
(Related: Being, Secrecy)
"Secrecy involves a tension which, at the moment of revelation, finds its release."
- Georg Simmel
(Related: Secrecy, Tension)
"Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it."
- Georg Simmel
(Related: Secrecy, Will)
"Children love secret club houses. They love secrecy even when there's no need for secrecy."
- Donna Tartt
(Related: Love, Children, Houses, Secrecy)
"Secrecy is the chastity of friendship."
- Jeremy Taylor
(Related: Friendship, Chastity, Secrecy)
"Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction."
- Edward Teller
(Related: Addiction, Secrecy)