Secrecy Quotes

• Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.

  Bill Moyers

  Dream, Freedom, Tyrants

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• Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.

  Sophocles

  Time, Secret, All Things

  "Hipponous". Play by Sophocles, Fragment 280,

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• Power corrupts, and there is nothing more corrupting than power exercised in secret.

  Daniel Schorr

  Secret, Power Corrupts

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• While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive.

  Sissela Bok

  Hype, Deception, Deceiving

  Sissela Bok (2011). “Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation”, p.7, Vintage

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• To whom you betray your secret you sell your liberty.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Secret, Liberty, Betray

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• Privacy is something that we maintain for the good of ourselves and others. Secrecy we keep to separate ourselves from others, even those we love.

  Mary Alice Monroe

  Privacy, Those We Love

  Mary Alice Monroe (2012). “The Beach House”, p.133, Harlequin

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  The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

  Patrick Henry

  Fake People, Freedom, 4th Of July

  "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3". Book by Jonathan Elliot, 1836.

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• While privacy strengthens all our bonds, secrecy weakens and damages connection. Lerner points out that we do not usually "know the emotional costs of keeping a secret" until the truth is disclosed. Usually, secrecy involves lying. And lying is always the setting for potential betrayal and violation of trust.

  Bell Hooks

  Betrayal, Lying, Emotional

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• The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy; the best weapon of a democracy is openness.

  Edward Teller

  Freedom, Democracy, Weapons

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• Government ought to be all outside and no inside. . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Believe, Mean, Government

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• Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Elements, Mysterious, Mystery

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• 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. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

  John F. Kennedy

  Long Ago, People, Secret

  Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

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• Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

  Samuel Johnson

  Evil, Secret, Vices

  Samuel Johnson (1948). “The wisdom of Dr. Johnson: being comments on life and moral precepts chosen from his writings”

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• 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

  Nwo, People, Political

  Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

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• To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wisdom, Keeping Secrets, Kept Secrets

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• Secrecy can spring from the best motives; but as it grows it begins to exist only for itself, only for its own sake, only to cover its own abuses.

  Christopher Dodd

  Spring, Abuse, Sake

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• When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and -- eventually -- incapable of determining their own destinies.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Destiny, People, Ignorant

  Nixon, Richard M. (1974). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1972”, p.402, Best Books on

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• Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy.

  Ramsey Clark

  Democracy, Diminish

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• Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Purpose, Persuasion

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• A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

  John F. Kennedy

  Christian, Peace, War

  Kennedy, John F. (1963). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962”, p.163, Best Books on

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• Never confide your secrets to paper; it is like throwing a stone in the air; and if you know who throws the stone, you do not know where it may fall.

  Pedro Calderon de la Barca

  Fall, Air, Secret

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• Secrecy is for losers. . . . It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most persuasive of Cold War-era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness that is already upon us.

  Daniel Patrick Moynihan

  War, Government, Support

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• There is no doubt that constitutional freedoms will never be abolished in one fell swoop, for the American people cherish their freedoms, and would not tolerate such a loss if they could perceive it. But the erosion of freedom rarely comes as an all-out frontal assault but rather as a gradual, noxious creeping, cloaked in secrecy, and glossed over by reassurances of greater security.

  Robert Byrd

  Loss, Erosion, People

  "Life in the Shadows of the Empire" by Eamon Martin, www.counterpunch.org. March 18, 2006.

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• When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and interchange their keys.

  Owen Feltham

  Keys, Two Friends, Secret

  Owen Feltham (1840). “Resolves: divine, moral and political”, p.114

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• What thou intendest to do, speak not of before thou doest it.

  Pittacus of Mytilene

  Speak

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