Quotes about secrecy (87 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy the human dress.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

A Divine Image, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Heart , Jealousy

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love , Life

“She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Secret , Passion

“When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love , People , Parting

“Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.”

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

On Publicity http://books.google.com/books?id=AusJAAAAIAAJ&q="Secresy+is+an+instrument+of+conspiracy+it+ought+not+therefore+to+be+the+system+of+a+regular+government"&pg=PA315#v=onepage from The Works of Jeremy Bentham volume 2, part 2 (1839)

“And yet, in our rush to respond to a very real and novel set of threats, the risk of government overreach -- the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security -- also became more pronounced. […] intelligence agencies cannot function without secrecy, which makes their work less subject to public debate. Yet there is an inevitable bias not only within the intelligence community, but among all of us who are responsible for national security, to collect more information about the world, not less. So in the absence of institutional requirements for regular debate -- and oversight that is public, as well as private or classified -- the danger of government overreach becomes more acute. And this is particularly true when surveillance technology and our reliance on digital information is evolving much faster than our laws.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Review of Signals Intelligence Speech (June 2014)

World , Law , Intelligence , Communication

“Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.”

Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) French clergyman, noble and statesman

“Maxims,” Testament Politique (1641)

“In the name of national security, the Commission’s hearings were held in secret, thereby continuing the policy which has marked the entire course of the case. This prompts my second question: If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security? Indeed, precisely the same question must be put here as was posed in France during the Dreyfus case: If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest secrecy?”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"16 Questions on the Assassination" http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/The_critics/Russell/Sixteen_questions_Russell.html in The Minority of One, ed. M.S. Arnoni (1964-09-06), pp. 6-8
1960s

Secret , Question

“We are already justified in the conviction that human life as we know it in history is a wretched makeshift, rooted in ignorance; and that it could be transcended by a state of existence based on the illumination of knowledge and comprehension, just as our modern control of physical nature based on science transcends the tentative fumblings of our ancestors, that were rooted in superstition and professional secrecy.
To do this, we must study the possibilities of creating a more favourable social environment, as we have already done in large measure with our physical environment.”

Julian Huxley (1887–1975) English biologist, philosopher, author

Transhumanism (1957)

Life , History , Nature , Knowledge

“In the time of your life, live — so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world.”

William Saroyan The Time of Your Life

The Time of Your Life (1939)
Context: In the time of your life, live — so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in the wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

Life , Death , World , Time

“A man who makes assertions, or draws conclusions, regarding any given case, ought to be competent to investigate it. He has no right to throw the onus on others, declaring it their duly to prove him right or wrong. His duty is to demonstrate the truth of that which he asserts, or to cease from asserting. The men he calls upon to consider and judge have enough to do with themselves, in the examination, correction, or verification of their own views. The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination; that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized.”

Michael Faraday book Experimental researches in chemistry and physics

"Observations on Mental Education" (May 6, 1854) a lecture before His Royal Highness The Prince Consort and the Members of the Royal Institution, Lectures on Education (1855) as quoted in Faraday's Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics (1859) p. 486. https://books.google.com/books?id=AUwNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA486

Drawing , Success , Silence , Hope

“Silence is not just about secrecy, Your Majesty. It is grief and it is shame.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Silence

“We live in an age of confusion and thirst in which the advantages of communication are greater than those of secrecy.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

Source: Esoterism as Principle and as Way

Age , Communication

“Abstruse dullness is actually a much more effective shield than is secrecy. For the great disadvantage of secrecy is that it’s interesting.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Love , Hate

“The powerful have historically tried to impose their will through mechanisms of enforced ignorance such as censorship, secrecy, threats, physical intimidation and violence. This model is difficult to sustain in a networked world based on Enlightenment values. This is not to say that Western democracies have abandoned these heavy-handed tactics, but more often the methods have shifted to more sophisticated ways of maintaining power such as media management, public relations and legal intimidation. In the midst of all this information and misinformation how can we filter out what is important and true?”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 72.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

World , Way , Democracy

“It is quite evident that the Soviet system today represents the exact opposite of almost everything that the left in the West is striving for - obsessive state secrecy rather than freedom of information, centralised bureaucratic control instead of devolved decision making and public accountability, total state power over the individual as opposed to inalienable civil liberties, authoritarian economic management rather than trade union freedom and industrial democracy, and a government-manipulated media instead of greater diversity and choice in news and information sources.”

Peter Tatchell (1952) British gay rights activist

Democratic Defence. London: GMP Publishers. p. 36. ISBN 0-946097-16-X.

Democracy , Decision , Freedom

“Most power structures are deeply incompetent, staffed by people who don't really believe in their institutions and that most power is the projection of the perception of power. And the more secretively it works, the more incompetent it is, because secrecy breeds incompetence, while openness breeds competence, because one can see and can compare actions and see which one is more competent. To keep up these appearances, institutional heads or political heads such as presidents spend most of the time trying to walk in front of the train and pretending that it is following them, but the direction is set by the tracks and by the engine of the train. Understanding that means that small and committed organisations can outmanoeuvre these institutional dinosaurs, like the State Department, the NSA or the CIA.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Source: Repubblica.it interview, 23 Dec 2016<sup> link http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/12/23/news/assange_wikileaks-154754000/</sup>

Understanding , Secret , People , Appearance

“During his lifetime Gurdjieff did not publish any books on the techniques of his teaching, and his pupils were bound to secrecy on the subject. Since his death in Paris in 1949, however, many of his works have been published, and there has been a flood of memoirs by disciples and admirers. Gurdjieff was in almost ever respect the antithesis of Aleister Crowley. Whereas Crowley craved publicity, Gurdjieff shunned it. Crowley was forgotten for two decades after his death; Gurdjieff on the contrary, has become steadily better known, and his influence continues to grow. One of the main reasons for this is that there was so little of the charlatan about him. He is no cult figure with hordes of gullible disciples. What he has to teach makes an appeal to the intelligence, and can be fully understood only by those who are prepared to make a serious effort.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

They Had Strange Powers (1975)

Death , Books , Intelligence , Effort

“Upon that misty night in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still it was a place where no one else could come.”

Loreena McKennitt (1957) Canadian musician and composer

The Mask and Mirror (1994), The Dark Night of The Soul

Light , Waiting , Sun , Heart

“I am concerned about the secrecy surrounding negotiations for trade treaties, which have excluded key stakeholder groups from the process, including labour unions, environmental protection groups, food-safety movements and health professionals.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

U.N. expert says secret trade deals threaten human rights http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/23/trade-rights-idUSL5N0XK54G20150423?feedType=RSS&feedName=everything&virtualBrandChannel=11563.
2015

Health , Food

“Every country-side wished to have its own Ku Klux, founded in secrecy and mystery like the mother ‘Den’ at Pulaski, until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, an ‘Invisible Empire of the South,’ bound together in loose organization to protect the southern country from some of the ugliness hazards of a time of revolution.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Source: 1900s, A History of the American People, Vol. 9 (1902), p. 60

Time , Country

“Too many crucial things about this country turn out to be highly recommended because they are 'invisible'. There is the 'hidden hand' of the free market, the 'unwritten' Constitution, the 'invisible earnings' of the financial service sector, the 'magic' of monarchy and the 'mystery' of the Church and its claim to the interpretation of revealed truth. When we do get as far as the visible or the palpable, too much of it is deemed secret. How right it is that senior ministers, having kissed hands with the monarch, are sworn to the cult of secrecy by 'The Privy Council Oath'. How right it is that our major foreign alliance - the 'special relationship' with the United States - is codified by no known treaty and regulated by no known Parliamentary instrument.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Truth , Secret , Kiss , Country

“[Zuanne de Tonini] da Coi… impuned Tartaglia to publish his method, but the latter declined to do so. In 1539 Cardan wrote to Tartaglia, and a meeting was arranged at which, Tartaglia says, having pledged Cardan to secrecy, he revealed the method in cryptic verse and later with a full explanation. Cardan admits that he received the solution from Tartaglia, but… without any explanation. At any rate, the two cubics x^3 + ax^2 = c and x^3 + bx = c could now be solved. The reduction of the general cubic x^3 + ax^2 + bx = c to the second of these forms does not seem to have been considered by Tartaglia at the time of the controversy. When Cardan published his Ars Magna however, he transformed the types x^3 = ax^2 + c and x^3 + ax^2 = c by substituting x = y + \frac{1}{3}a and x = y - \frac{1}{3}a respectively, and transformed the type x^3 + c = ax^2 by the substitution x = \sqrt[3]{c^2/y}, thus freeing the equations of the term x^2. This completed the general solution, and he applied the method to the complete cubic in his later problems.”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

Source: History of Mathematics (1925) Vol.2, p.461

Problem , Time

“In secrecy, bureaucracies grow large, ungainly and unaccountable to those they are meant to serve. When there is no fierce spotlight of public accountability shining, there is no pressure to ensure systems are streamlined or even working. What you find throughout any bureaucracy protected by secrecy is a cesspit of illogic and waste. And because the state keeps rebranding, shifting responsibility from one set of bureaucrats to another, most of the work being done is for the purpose of keeping other bureaucrats in employment rather than satisfying the needs of the public.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 35.
The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy, 1st Edition

“The history of medicine proves that in so far as man seeks to know himself and face his whole nature, he has become free from bewildered fear, despondent shame, or arrant hypocrisy. As long as sex is dealt with in the current confusion of ignorance and sophistication, denial and indulgence, suppression and stimulation, punishment and exploitation, secrecy and display, it will be associated with a duplicity and indecency that lead neither to intellectual honesty nor human dignity.”

Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) American scientist (1894–1956)

Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948)

Fear , Sex , History , Nature

“Disclosures about the magnitude of covert State surveillance and well-known examples of intimidation of human rights defenders shock the conscience and require public discussion and corrective action in each country and by the international community. In a democratic society, it is crucial for citizens to know whether their Governments are acting constitutionally or are engaged in policies that violate international law and human rights. It is their civic duty to protest against Government secrecy and cover-ups, the chilling effect of disproportionate surveillance, acts of intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests and defamation of human rights defenders, including whistleblowers, as unpatriotic or even traitors, when in fact they may be the most effective defenders of the rule of law. These acts of surveillance and intimidation are hallmarks of totalitarianism, not of democratic governance.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
2013

Law , Communication , Country

“It was selfish and nothing more. The same way a child doesn't want to share her favorite toy. I understand that secrecy is part of, well, an aberrant behavior system. It comes from a bad place, not a place of light and generosity. And when you deprive your friends, or someone like your son Gunner, of experiences like I had, you're basically stealing from them. You're depriving them of something they have a right to. Knowledge is a basic human right. Equal access to all possible human experience is a basic human right.”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Mae, to Bailey; p. 303
The Circle (2013)

Way , Behavior , Understanding , Knowledge

“Secrecy is a compulsive reflex in this country. It strangles thought, delays scientific progress, and destroys integrity.”

Jack McDevitt book The Hercules Text

Source: The Hercules Text (1986), Chapter 7 (p. 105)

Country

“Secrecy as deep as this is past possibility without nonexistence as well.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 1 “Two Men and the Mule”; in part I, “Search by the Mule” originally published as “Now You See It—” in Astounding (January 1948)

Past

“…I had learnt that the most effective way to spread a story was to tell it to one or two Arabs under a pledge of secrecy.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p. 255.

Way

“The manipulation of public opinion both by governments and corporate media, and the manufacturing of consent undermine the essence of democracy, which is genuine participation. The harassment, imprisonment and killing of human rights defenders, including journalists, in many countries shocks the conscience. But also certain aspects of the war on terrorism and the abuse of anti-terrorist legislation have significantly eroded human rights and fundamental freedoms. In a democratic society it is crucial for citizens to know whether their governments are acting constitutionally, or are engaged in policies that violate international law and human rights. It is their civic duty to protest against government secrecy and covers-up, against disproportionate surveillance, acts of intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests and defamation of human rights defenders, including whistleblowers as unpatriotic or even traitors, when in fact they are necessary defenders of the rule of law.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' comments to the remarks made by NGOs and States during the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Session http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13713&LangID=E Comments by Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, following the Interactive Dialogue on the presentation of his thematic report.
2013

War , Law , Democracy , Freedom

“The indwelling deity who presides over the destiny of the race has raised in man's mind and heart the idea, the hope of a new order which will replace the old unsatisfactory order, and substitute for it conditions of the world's life which will in the end have a reasonable chance of establishing permanent peace and well-being…. It is for the men of our day and, at the most, of tomorrow to give the answer. For, too long a postponement or too continued a failure will open the way to a series of increasing catastrophes which might create a too prolonged and disastrous confusion and chaos and render a solution too difficult or impossible; it might even end in something like an irremediable crash not only of the present world-civilisation but of all civilisation…. The terror of destruction and even of large-scale extermination created by these ominous discoveries may bring about a will in the governments and peoples to ban and prevent the military use of these inventions, but, so long as the nature of mankind has not changed, this prevention must remain uncertain and precarious and an unscrupulous ambition may even get by it a chance of secrecy and surprise and the utilisation of a decisive moment which might conceivably give it victory and it might risk the tremendous chance.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

April, 1950 (From a Postcript Chapter to The Ideal of Human Unity.)
India's Rebirth

Life , Men , People , World

“I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

Robert A. Heinlein book If This Goes On

If This Goes On— (p. 401)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Motivation , Sense , Reading

“When I looked at the science of engineering and saw that it had disappeared after its ancient heritage, that its masters have perished, and that their memories are now forgotten, I worked my wits and thoughts in secrecy about philosophical shapes and figures, which could move the mind, with effort, from nothingness to being and from idleness to motion. And I arranged these shapes one by one in drawings and explained them.”

Al-Muradi

Al-Muradi, The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas, 11th century; Translated and cited at leonardo3.net/bookofsecrets/index http://www.leonardo3.net/bookofsecrets/index_eng.html, 2015

Effort , Memory , Science , Drawing

“Among the spiritual forces secretly working in the camp of Germany's enemies and their allies in this war, as in the last, stands Freemasonry, the danger of whose activities has been repeatedly stressed by the Fuehrer in his speeches. The present brochure, now made available to the German and European peoples in a 3rd edition, is intended to shed light on this enemy working in the shadows. Though an end has been put to the activities of Masonic organizations in most European countries, particular attention must still be paid to Freemasonry, and most particularly to its membership, as the implements of the political will of a supra-governmental power. The events of the summer of 1943 in Italy demonstrate once again the latent danger always represented by individual Freemasons, even after the destruction of their Masonic organizations. Although Freemasonry was prohibited in Italy as early as 1925, it has retained significant political influence in Italy through its membership, and has continued to exert that influence in secrecy. Freemasons thus stood in the first ranks of the Italian traitors who believed themselves capable of dealing Fascism a death blow at a critical juncture, shamelessly betraying the Italian nation. The intended object of the 3rd printing of this brochure is to provide a clearer knowledge of the danger of Masonic corruption, and to keep the will to self-defence alive.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

Foreword in "Freemasonry: Ideology, Organization, and Policy," first published in 1944.

Death , War , People , Knowledge

“The United States has never actually wanted one true spy service, on the model of England’s MI6. Instead, it has tried to create a first-rate spy community. That community reflects the character of our culture: it’s a crazy-quilt of checks and balances, division of labor, specialization, decentralization, friendship with free nations, civilian control of the military, and a distrust of secrecy dating to the Salem witch trials. The result is an over-managed yet under-coordinated system, spanning not just dozens of U. S. agencies, but dozens of other governments, and even nongovernmental organizations. It includes not just the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon, but functional partners in British and Israeli intelligence, treaty alliances such as NATO and SEATO, and even information sharing with transnational entities such as the United Nations, the Vatican, and Google.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Litany of Blunders (2007)

Friendship , Intelligence , Communication

“About the Bofors issue: He (Rajiv Gandhi) said that he was quite ready to get all the details regarding payments to Indian nationals, but then Bofors Company did not want to violate commercial secrecy as it would affect its future deals. I told Rajiv, as Deface Minister I knew that all arms manufacturers were employing agents and remunerating them under different names. Therefore, it would be unrealistic to think that foreign arms dealers did not have agents. But utmost care should be taken to see that they did not influence our decisions.”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

He had advised Rajiv Gandhi to make a statement in the parliament
Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, p. 143.

Thinking , Decision , Future

“By making everything secure [governments] have degraded the quality of secrecy.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, In the Media
Source: Financial Times http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9098a06a-9c1c-11df-a7a4-00144feab49a.html#axzz45lPGQfQg - "Online leaks: A digital deluge" by Richard Waters, 30 July 2010.

“I have been espousing for transparency in government to curb graft and corruption. I filed this bill on waiver on bank secrecy in 2010 and continuously pursues this advocacy in the Senate.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Sun Star Manila http://archive.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2014/03/05/bill-seeks-mandatory-signing-bank-waiver-all-gov-t-officials-331500
2014

“Let me frankly state that I see two great difficulties with this proposal. In view of your public position, such action on our part would inevitably produce worldwide speculation that discussions were under way and would impair the privacy and secrecy of those discussions. Secondly, there would inevitably be grave concern on our part whether your government would make use of such action by us to improve its military position.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Letter to Ho Chi Minh (1967)

Way , Parting

“Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

On Equilibrium (2001)

Money , Democracy , Silence

“From the union of power and money,
from the union of power and secrecy,
from the union of government and science,
from the union of government and art,
from the union of science and money,
from the union of ambition and ignorance,
from the union of genius and war,
from the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union" in Entries (1997).
Poems

Money , War , Art , Science

“Secrecy in science does not work. Withholding information does more damage to us than to our competitors.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

As quoted in Proceedings of the International Conference on Lasers '87 (1988) edited by F. J. Duarte, p. 1165

Science

“I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated, and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In other words, it forbids wholesome doubt. […]
This false certainty comes out in Professor Haldane's article. […] It is breaking Aristotle's canon—to demand in every enquiry that the degree of certainty which the subject matter allows. And not on your life to pretend that you see further than you do.
Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its modus operandi.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety.
"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946), published posthumously in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966)
Some of these ideas were included in the essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" (1949) (see below).

Life , Men , People , Truth

“It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

As quoted in The Chicago Tribune (13 April 1966)
1960s

“A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

15 January 1753
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Men

“Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.”

Josh Marshall Talking Points Memo

Talking Points Memo (2006-01-17) http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/--94387

“The secrecy hasn't been enforced because the government thinks people are going to freak out when they find we're not alone in the universe, not in 1999. What will be shocking is the scandal of the last 50 years of ecosystem destruction, when we've had the technology to avoid it since the late '50s.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Undated

People , Thinking , Universe

“Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.”

Abraham Maslow book Motivation and Personality

Source: Motivation and Personality (1954), p. 23.

Communication

“For all its apparent tolerance, the USA maintains a peculiar balance between the forces of capitalism and democracy. To achieve this I feel sure the country is guided by some hidden force; an organization working in secrecy, powerful enough to dispose of the Kennedys and of anyone else who gets in its way.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 169
Attributed

Way , Feeling , Democracy , Country

“I’m very much a free market capitalist, actually. I don’t agree with a kind of totalitarian, one government or sort of universal law. I think what will happen and what is happening now is, in the same way as… In the way that countries make themselves attractive to investors through different pieces of legislation they offer, whether it’s secrecy in the case of the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, I think the fact that some countries now are offering very robust publishing laws, it will be that as information is global, what you might see is that these big internet companies like Google or Facebook, that have their servers, will start to relocate those servers to countries where they have less interference. In a way, you’re creating a kind of free market of freedom of information law.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, Chatham House Talk (September 28, 2011)

Law , Way , Thinking , Freedom

“I do not care a button about having my name in any blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a 'leader'. Then, again, I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom' and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere… or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the 'religions' and is the reason of their failure. If I tolerate a little writing about myself, it is only to have a sufficient counter-weight in that amorphous chaos, the public mind, to balance the hostility that is always aroused by the presence of a new dynamic Truth in this world of ignorance. But the utility ends there and too much advertisement would defeat that object. I am perfectly 'rational', I assure you, in my methods and I do not proceed merely on any personal dislike of fame. If and so far as publicity serves the Truth, I am quite ready to tolerate it; but I do not find publicity for its own sake desirable.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

October 2, 1934
India's Rebirth

Hostility , People , Truth , Books

“Francis Bacon, in his New Atlantis, could charge his elite scientists in Salomon’s House with practicing self-censorship to avoid publicizing dangerous knowledge. Here is how the Father of Salomon’s House describes their practice: “We have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all a oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though some of those we do reveal sometime to the State, and some not.” Bacon, the first prophet of the new relation between science and society and of the “conquest of nature for the relief of man’s estate,” knew better than we that knowledge is dangerous, that publication is a public and politically relevant act, and that self-censorship on the part of scientists is necessary and desirable. The passage is also remarkable for its wonderful ambiguity regarding whether scientists or the State has ultimate authority over dangerous knowledge”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Forbidding Science: Some Beginning Reflections (2006)

Secret , Nature , Knowledge , Thinking

“A case can be made... that secrecy is for losers. For people who don't realize how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular, and singularly American, advantage. We put it in peril by poking along in a mode of an age now past. It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive 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 (1927–2003) American politician

Secrecy, ch. 8 (1998)

War , People , Age , Support

“Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons plot in secrecy,
And hamsters turn on frequently.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

At The Zoo
Song lyrics, Bookends (1968)

“Though many will criticize the president for mis-steps in Iraq and at home, it is with the complicity of Congress that we have become a nation of pre-emptive war, secret military tribunals, torture, rejection of habeas corpus, warrantless searches, undue government secrecy, extraordinary renditions, and uncontrolled spying on the American people. Fighting over there has nothing to do with preserving freedoms here at home. More likely the opposite is true.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Getting Iraq War Funding Wrong Again, April 30, 2007 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst043007.htm
2000s, 2006-2009

War , People , Secret , Home

“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.”

Guy Debord book Comments on the Society of the Spectacle

Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988)

Secret

“With respect to the homosocial/homosexual style, it seems to be possible to divide Victorian men among three rough categories according to class. The first includes aristocratic men and small groups of their friends and dependents, including bohemians and prostitutes; for these people, by 1865, a distinct homosexual role and culture seem already to have been in existence in England… It seems to have constituted a genuine subculture, facilitated in the face of an ideologically hostile dominant culture by money, privilege, internationalism, and for the most part, the ability to command secrecy… This role is closely related to — is in fact, through Oscar Wilde, the antecedent of — the particular stereotype that at least until recently has characterized American middle-class gay homosexuality; its strongest associations, as we have noted, are with effeminacy, transvestism, promiscuity, prostitution, continental European culture, and the arts.”

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950–2009) American academic

Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), pp. 172-173

Men , Money , Hostility , People

“There's a dream where the contents are visible
Where the poetic champions compose
Will you breathe not a word of this secrecy, and
Will you still be my special rose?”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Queen of the Slipstream
Song lyrics, Poetic Champions Compose (1987)

Dreams

“The solution lies in secrecy,” said Medra. “But so does the problem.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Finder” (p. 64)
Earthsea Books, Tales from Earthsea (2001)

Problem

“We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

People , Truth , Democracy , Thinking

“Transparency is seen as the antidote to corruption because secrecy is, if not its cause, then at least a necessary precondition. This is especially so for corruption involving private enrichment from public goods. Transparency is a power-reducing mechanism so it matters whose affairs are made transparent and for what purpose.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, In the Media
Source: Financial Times http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7ba47200-015c-11e6-99cb-83242733f755.html#axzz45lPGQfQg "Transparency thwarts the abuse of power to enrich the powerful", Column in the Financial Times, 13 April 2016.

“Secrecy was paramount. Britain's imperial general staff knew there would be outrage if it became known that the government was intending to use its secret stockpile of chemical weapons. But Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for war, brushed aside their concerns. As a long-term advocate of chemical warfare, he was determined to use them against the Russian Bolsheviks.”

Giles Milton (1966) British writer and historian

Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons (1 September 2013), .

War , Secret

“There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice, that does not live by secrecy.”

Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911) Hungarian-American newspaper publisher

Brian, Denis. Pulitzer: A Life, p. 377. John Wiley and Sons, Oct 1, 2001

“The Panama Papers opened yet another window on the global system of financial corruption, showing how political leaders and businesses use shell companies in secrecy havens like the British Virgin Islands and many US states to evade taxes and hide corruption and other crimes. Yet the system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

"The age of impunity," The Boston Globe, May 13, 2016 http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/05/12/the-age-impunity/LHBxamqFENCs3W6lvWnCIJ/story.html

Business , Dependency

“That country will have the greatest security whose informational and scientific situation is adequate to meet the demands that may be put on it—the country in which it is fully realized that information is important as a stage in the continuous process by which we observe the outer world, and act effectively upon it. In other words, no amount of scientific research, carefully recorded in books and papers, and then put into our libraries with labels of secrecy, will be adequate to protect us for any length of time in a world where the effective level of information is perpetually advancing.”

Norbert Wiener book The Human Use of Human Beings

VII. Communication, Secrecy, and Social Policy. p. 121-122
The Human Use of Human Beings (1950)

Books , World , Time , Country

“Whistleblowers are human rights defenders whose contribution to democracy and the rule of law cannot be overestimated. They serve democracy and human rights by revealing information that all persons are entitled to receive. A culture of secrecy is frequently also a culture of impunity. Because the right to know proclaimed in article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is absolutely crucial to every democracy, whistleblowers should be protected, not persecuted.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

“It is time to recognize the contribution of whistleblowers” – UN expert welcomes commutation of Manning’s sentence
2017, Whistleblowers

Law , Democracy , Personality

“I took that opportunity to tell him something that, er, I had long thought of telling somebody that was about to enter the world of really high secrecy. And I said, 'Henry, you're about to get a lot of clearence higher than top secret that you did not know existed. That's going to have a sequence of effects on you. First, a great exhileration that you're getting all this amazing information that you didn't know even existed. And the next phase is you'll feel like a fool for not having known about any of this. but that won't last long. Fairly soon, you'll come to think that everyone else is foolish. What would this expert be telling me if he knew what I knew? So in the end, you stop listening to them.”

Daniel Ellsberg (1931) American economist and whistleblower

On talking to Henry Kissinger about the effects of gaining high security clearence after Kissinger's first National Security Council with then president Nixon. 'The Most Dangerous Man in America - Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers' 2009 Documentary.

Secret , World , Fools , Feeling

“Indeed, the secrecy of the program indicates an understanding that the regular military culture and mores would not support these activities and neither would the American public or the world community. Another implicit acknowledgement of violations of accepted standards of behavior is the process of farming out prisoners to countries less averse to torture and giving assignments to private contractors.
President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did.
NYU Speech (2004)

Fate , World , Way , Behavior

“Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it. Even when one of the parties does not notice the secret factor, yet the attitude of the concealer, and consequently the whole relationship, will be modified by it.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies (1906), p. 462

Secret

“A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the Nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest. At the same time, the welfare of the Nation or the rights of individuals may require that some documents not be made available.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Statement on the Freedom of Information Act (1966)
Context: A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the Nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest. At the same time, the welfare of the Nation or the rights of individuals may require that some documents not be made available. As long as threats to peace exist, for example, there must be military secrets. A citizen must be able in confidence to complain to his Government and to provide information, just as he is– and should be– free to confide in the press without fear of reprisal or of being required to reveal or discuss his sources.

People , Democracy , Decision , Time

“For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Opening lines
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
Context: The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable.

Men , Children , World

“I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Address to ANPA
Context: I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future — for reducing this threat or living with it — there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security — a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President — two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

“We've got to break through the wall of secrecy. It's America's fate.”

Helen Thomas (1920–2013) American author and journalist

Phone interview on The Majority Report, 2004-04-02

Fate

“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 (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.

People , Secret

“Not to know the end of the tale filled me with a sense of emptiness, loss. I hungered for the sharp, frightening, breathtaking, almost painful excitement that the story had given me, and I vowed that as soon as I was old enough I would buy all the novels there were and read them to feed that thirst for violence that was in me, for intrigue, for plotting, for secrecy, for bloody murders.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

Hunger , Pain , Sense , Loss

“America has no functioning democracy at this moment […] I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Jimmy Carter

Democracy , Thinking

“The people are never voluntary slaves, they yield not to power, but when they believe it to be a duty, or are unable to oppose it. Hence in a state newly founded or reformed, the subjects are not at once enslaved, however imperfect the constitution might be. Despair, that prompted them at first to throw off the yoke, would prompt them to throw it off anew whenever they should feel its weight. To commence with open attacks upon liberty, and to attempt to destroy it by violence, would prove therefore a rash undertaking. When those who govern, daringly dispute the supreme power with open force, and the people perceive their rulers attempting * to enslave them, the latter ever prevail, and the Prince in a moment loses the fruit of all his efforts. At his first attempt the subjects unite against him, and his authority is at stake, if his conduct be not more submissive than imperious. It is not therefore by open attacks Princes first attempt to enslave the people, they take their measures in secrecy, they have recourse to craft: it is by flow but constant efforts, by changes almost imperceptible, by innovations of which it is difficult to observe the consequences, and such as are scarcely taken notice of.”

Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) politician and journalist during the French Revolution

THE CHAINS OF SLAVERY

Despair , People , Effort , Feeling

“If Parliament, public and press have now braced themselves to accept the plain and obvious truth that Cabinet discussions are interesting, vigorous and sometimes revolve around alternative policies, why should even the disclosure of an outline of the points at issue—while these discussions are in progress—be guarded against so relentlessly and so ineffectively from any risk of publicity? … Secrecy in decision-making does not occur by accident or default. It is because knowledge is power, and no government willingly gives up power to the Commons, the public, or anyone else. Open government would disclose more about the processes of decision-making, including the workings of the Cabinet committee system, reveal the roles of officials and advisers, and involve both admitting and encouraging pressure upon ministers. … If parliamentary democracy is, as I believe, a unique system of government, partly because it allows us to learn from our own mistakes in time to correct them, the raw material of that experience must be made available in time to use it for that purpose.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech to a Press Gallery luncheon (14 February 1977), quoted in The Times (15 February 1977), p. 4
1970s

Democracy , Time , Learning , Knowledge

“Real power begins where secrecy begins.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Part 3, Ch. 12, § 1.
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

“The Executive must have the largely unshared duty to determine and preserve the degree of internal security necessary to exercise that power successfully. It is an awesome responsibility requiring judgment and wisdom of a high order. A very first principle of that wisdom would be an insistence upon avoiding secrecy for its own sake. For when everything is classified, then nothing is classified and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion.”

Potter Stewart (1915–1985) American judge

Source: Security Classification Reform Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Goverment Operations of the House of Representatives. Ninetythird Congress. Second Session. 1974

Self-confidence , Wisdom , Exercises