Secrecy Quotes - Page 3

• To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Secret, Guilt, Communicate

  14 Copy quote

• Everybody knows worse of himself than he knows of other men.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Knows

  8 Copy quote

• A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.

  Joseph Conrad

  Men, Keeping Secrets, Literature

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Joseph Conrad Ultimate Collection: 18 Novels, 20+ Short Stories, Letters & Memoirs: Including Classics like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Duel, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Victory, The Shadow-Line & Under Western Eyes”, p.2311, e-artnow

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Wise, Believe, Men

  "Encouragement of Science". J. Robert Oppenheimer's address at Science Talent Institute (March 6, 1950), as quoted in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", Volume 7, No. 1 (pp. 6-8), January 1951.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Secret enmities are more to be feared than open ones.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Secret, Enmity

  7 Copy quote

• I vow and protest there's more plague than pleasure with a secret.

  George Colman the Elder

  Secret, Pleasure, Vow

  David Garrick, George Colman, the elder (1995). “The Clandestine Marriage”, p.46, Broadview Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is mine, even to my life, is hers I love; but the secret of my friend is not mine!

  Philip Sidney

  Secret, Life Is, Mines

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.195

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A secret at home is like rocks under tide.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Home, Rocks, Secret

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 695-96, Magnus and Morna, scene 2, 1922.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  War, Keeping Secrets, Half

  Henry Ward Beecher (1867). “Norwood: Or, Village Life in New England”, p.21

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• A secret is too little for one, enough for two, and too much for three.

  James Howell

  Two, Secret, Three

  6 Copy quote

• O divine art of subtlety and secrecy!

  Sun Tzu

  Art, War, Divine

  The Art of War (6th century b.c.).

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.

  Kate Adie

  Silence, Democracy, Information

  7 Copy quote

• With a woman, always make good use of a secret. She will be proportionally grateful to you, like a scoundrel who grants his respect to an honest man he has been unable to swindle.

  Honore de Balzac

  Grateful, Men, Secret

  9 Copy quote

• Nothing is so oppressive as a secret: women find it difficult to keep one long; and I know a goodly number of men who are women in this regard.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Men, Numbers, Long

  "Fables", VIII. 6, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 695-96, 1922.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• Be thine own privy counsellor.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Counsellors

  8 Copy quote

• There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lying, Together, Communicate

  9 Copy quote

• Government that is open and honest will always be able to withstand the light of day.

  Rick Perry

  Light, Government, Able

  6 Copy quote

• The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected.

  Anton Chekhov

  Men, Civilization, Privacy

  Anton Chekhov (2010). “Five Plays”, p.5, Stanford University Press

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.

  Alexander Smith

  Secret, Wish, Ifs

  Alexander Smith (2012). “Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.39, tredition

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Leave in concealment what has long been concealed.

  Seneca the Younger

  Long, Concealment, Concealed

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 695-96, Oedipus, 826, 1922.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• All classes of society are trade unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Heart, Class, Ability

  1882 The State in Relation to Labour, introduction.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.

  Jonathan Swift

  Rose, Ends

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1812). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.237

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The discourses of the table among true loving friends are held in strict silence.

  Thomas Browne

  Silence, Loving Friends, Tables

  6 Copy quote

• But there's a difference between privacy and secrecy, and I'm not a secretive person.

  Andrew Scott

  Differences, Privacy, Persons

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never inquire into another man's secret; bur conceal that which is intrusted to you, though pressed both be wine and anger to reveal it.

  Horace

  Wine, Men, Secret

  8 Copy quote