“Everyone accepts that there are inevitably little areas of secrecy reserved for specialists; as regards things in general, many believe they are in on the secret.”
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988)
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Guy Debord29
French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding mem… 1931–1994Related quotes
“The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist
G 46
Variant translation: The inclination of people to consider small things as important has produced many great things.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook G (1779-1783)
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Glen Cook (1944) American fiction writer
Source: Lord of the Silent Kingdom (2007), Chapter 20 (pp. 518)
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1961, Address to ANPA
Context: 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. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
“She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher
trans. Michael Chase, p. 272
La Philosophie comme manière de vivre (2001)
Mao Zedong book On Contradiction
On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 就人类认识运动的秩序说来，总是由认识个别的和特殊的事物，逐步地扩大到认识一般的事物。人们总是首先认识了许多不同事物的特殊的本质，然后才有可能更进一步地进行概括工作，认识诸种事物的共同的本质。
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)
Context: An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith.
