Quotes about secretion page 4
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
"Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik" ("Churchill's Lie Factory"), 12 January 1941, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1941), pp. 364-369
This and similar lines in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf about what he claimed to be a strategem of Jewish lies using "the principle & which is quite true in itself & that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily," are often misquoted or paraphrased as: "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed."
1940s
Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger
originally in The Chronicle of Satan (1905).
The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey
Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Remarks against personality cults from a letter to W. Blos (10 November 1877).
Context: Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. A proof of this is for example, that, because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never permitted the numerous expressions of appreciation from various countries with which I was pestered during the existence of the International to reach the realm of publicity, and have never answered them, except occasionally by a rebuke. When Engels and I first joined the secret Communist Society we made it a condition that everything tending to encourage superstitious belief in authority was to be removed from the statutes.
“We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative.”
Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel
As quoted in LIFE magazine (3 October 1969), p. 32
Context: We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
The final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung (18 May 1849)'Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Vol. VI, p. 503,
Variant translation: We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism.
Context: Did you not read our articles about the June revolution, and was not the essence of the June revolution the essence of our paper?
Why then your hypocritical phrases, your attempt to find an impossible pretext?
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist
"Interview with Henri Matisse" by Jacques Guenne, L'Art Vivant (15 September 1925), translated by Jack Flam in Matisse on Art (1995)
1921 - 1940
Context: Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.
“Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1723/ <br class="br">Responsibilities (1914) <br class="br">Context: Now all the truth is out,<br>Be secret and take defeat<br>From any brazen throat,<br>For how can you compete,<br>Being honour bred, with one<br>Who, were it proved he lies,<br>Were neither shamed in his own<br>Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?<br>Bred to a harder thing<br>Than Triumph, turn away<br>And like a laughing string<br>Whereon mad fingers play<br>Amid a place of stone,<br>Be secret and exult,<br>Because of all things known<br>That is most difficult.
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
"Hallelujah" - 1984 performance http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3rwo0_leonard-cohen-hallelujah_music · Montreal Jazz Festival 2008 performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FpwjQLZTTs <br class="br">Various Positions (1984) <br class="br">Context: Now I've heard there was a secret chord<br>That David played, and it pleased the Lord<br>But you don't really care for music, do you?<br>It goes like this the fourth, the fifth<br>The minor fall, the major lift<br>The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Norman Rockwell (1894–1978) Armatian
As quoted in A Rockwell Portrait : An Intimate Biography (1978) by Donald Walton, p. 251
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 267
Context: The ethic of reverence for life constrains all, in whatever walk of life they may find themselves, to busy themselves intimately with all the human and vital processes which are being played out around them, and to give themselves as men to the man who needs human help and sympathy. It does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone, even if he is very useful to the community in so doing. It does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. It refuses to let the business man imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. It demands from all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others. In what way and in what measure this is his duty, this everyone must decide on the basis of the thoughts which arise in himself, and the circumstances which attend the course of his own life. The self-sacrifice of one may not be particularly in evidence. He carries it out simply by continuing his normal life. Another is called to some striking self-surrender which obliges him to set on one side all regard for his own progress. Let no one measure himself by his conclusions respecting someone else. The destiny of men has to fulfill itself in a thousand ways, so that goodness may be actualized. What every individual has to contribute remains his own secret. But we must all mutually share in the knowledge that our existence only attains its true value when we have experienced in ourselves the truth of the declaration: 'He who loses his life shall find it.
Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician
Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 1 : A Critical Consideration of the New Pedagogy in its Relation to Modern Science, p. 8.
Context: We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. The scientist is not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of nature and he bears the external symbols of his passion as does the follower of some religious order. To this body of real scientists belong those who, forgetting, like the Trappists of the Middle Ages, the world about them, live only in the laboratory, careless often in matters of food and dress because they no longer think of themselves; those who, through years of unwearied use of the microscope, become blind; those who in their scientific ardour inoculate themselves with tuberculosis germs; those who handle the excrement of cholera patients in their eagerness to learn the vehicle through which the diseases are transmitted; and those who, knowing that a certain chemical preparation may be an explosive, still persist in testing their theories at the risk of their lives. This is the spirit of the men of science, to whom nature freely reveals her secrets, crowning their labours with the glory of discovery.
There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought.
Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey
Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
“The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Memoirs of Childhood and Youth (1924)
Variant: A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
Context: The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. That is possible for him who never argues and strives with men and facts, but in all experience retires upon himself, and looks for the ultimate cause of things in himself.
“Till the wilderness cried aloud,
A secret between you two,
Between the proud and the proud.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Against Unworthy Praise http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1433/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) <br class="br">Context: p>O heart, be at peace, because<br>Nor knave nor dolt can break<br>What's not for their applause<br>Being for a woman's sake.<br>Enough if the work has seemed,<br>So did she your strength renew,<br>A dream that a lion had dreamed<br>Till the wilderness cried aloud,<br>A secret between you two,<br>Between the proud and the proud.What, still you would have their praise!<br>But here's a haughtier text,<br>The labyrinth of her days<br>That her own strangeness perplexed;<br>And how what her dreaming gave<br>Earned slander, ingratitude,<br>From self-same dolt and knave;<br>Aye, and worse wrong than these.<br>Yet she, singing upon her road,<br>Half lion, half child, is at peace.</p
E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist
What I Believe (1938)
Context: I believe in aristocracy, though — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.
“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon.”
Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)
Context: Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air — explode softly — and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth — boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap either — not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death. A child who touched one wouldn't have his hand blown off.
“I wanted to know the secret of life.”
Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV
Context: I wanted to know the secret of life. I had seen men, groups, deeds, faces. In the twilight I had seen the tremulous eyes of beings as deep as wells. I had seen the mouth that said in a burst of glory, "I am more sensitive than others." I had seen the struggle to love and make one's self understood, the refusal of two persons in conversation to give themselves to each other, the coming together of two lovers, the lovers with an infectious smile, who are lovers in name only, who bury themselves in kisses, who press wound to wound to cure themselves, between whom there is really no attachment, and who, in spite of their ecstasy deriving light from shadow, are strangers as much as the sun and the moon are strangers. I had heard those who could find no crumb of peace except in the confession of their shameful misery, and I had seen faces pale and red-eyed from crying. I wanted to grasp it all at the same time. All the truths taken together make only one truth. I had had to wait until that day to learn this simple thing. It was this truth of truths which I needed.
Not because of my love of mankind. It is not true that we love mankind. No one ever has loved, does love, or will love mankind. It was for myself, solely for myself, that I sought to attain the full truth, which is above emotion, above peace, even above life, like a sort of death. I wanted to derive guidance from it, a faith. I wanted to use it for my own good.
Maurice Maeterlinck The Blue Bird
The Oak
The Blue Bird (1908)
Context: I know that you are looking for the Blue Bird, that is to say, the great secret of things and of happiness, so that Man may make our servitude still harder. … I do not hear the Animals... Where are they?... All this concerns them as much as us... We, the Trees, must not assume the responsibility alone for the grave measures that have become necessary... On the day when Man hears that we have done what we are about to do, there will be terrible reprisals... It is right, therefore, that our agreement should be unanimous, so that our silence may be the same...
“The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.”
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War
Book II, 2.43
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist
As quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of the 20th Century : A Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Frank S. Pepper, p. 226
Context: When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.
Thomas Mann book Tonio Kröger
Source: Tonio Kröger (1903), Ch. 9, as translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan
Variant translation: But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the fair-haired and the blue-eyed, the bright children of life, the happy, the charming and the ordinary.
Ch. 9, as translated by David Luke
Context: What I have done is nothing, not much — as good as nothing. I shall do better things, Lisaveta — this is a promise. While I am writing, the sea's roar is coming up to me, and I close my eyes. I am looking into an unborn and shapeless world that longs to be called to life and order, I am looking into a throng of phantoms of human forms which beckon me to conjure them and set them free: some of them tragic, some of them ridiculous, and some that are both at once — and to these I am very devoted. But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the blond and blue-eyed, the bright-spirited living ones, the happy, amiable, and commonplace.
Do not speak lightly of this love, Lisaveta; it is good and fruitful. There is longing in it and melancholy envy, and a tiny bit of contempt, and an unalloyed chaste blissfulness.
Leon Trotsky book Terrorism and Communism
Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), Chapter three, p. 53
Manly P. Hall (1901–1990) Canadian writer and mystic
The Secret Teachings of All Ages p.306 https://ia800809.us.archive.org/15/items/Thesecretteachingsofallages2/The%20Secret%20Teachings%20Of%20All%20Ages%20-%20Manly%20P.%20Hall.pdf <br class="br">The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)
Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations
“Schopenhauer as educator” ("Schopenhauer als Erzieher"), § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 127
Untimely Meditations (1876)
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
The Prophecy of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven relates to the second coming of Christ; that of the Prince of the host relates to his first coming: and this Prophecy of the Messiah, in explaining them, relates to both comings, and assigns the times thereof.
Vol. I, Ch. 10: Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic
The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307, p: 20-21
Elisabeth Tova Bailey book The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (2010), "Epilogue," page 170
Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer
Miscellaneous Quotes On the Subjects of Magic and Magicians
Source: Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magi Part I: The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic By Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant), Translated by A. E. Waite, England, Rider & Company, England, 1896, p.3
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author
Source: See Silent Truth https://books.google.com.br/books?id=-bIAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT190 by Mark Edwards
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
Source: "An Inventor's Seasoned Ideas", New York Times (8 April 1934)
“The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse”
Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist
Source: It's a Magical World: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection
“There are no more thorough prudes than those who have some little secret to hide.”
George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin
“Of all the secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood the most divine was humor.”
Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
“Her secret fear? Maybe she didn't tried hard enough.”
Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena
Source: The Mark of Athena
“Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.”
Cory Doctorow Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Source: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005)
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher
Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception
“Nearly everybody has his box of secret pain, shared with no one.”
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden
John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“The secret to not being afraid is to understand what scares you”
Deborah Wiles (1953) American children's writer
Source: Countdown
Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer
Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
“The secret to happiness… be satisfied and be grateful.”
Mitch Albom (1958) American author
Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story
“If we knew each other's secrets, what comfort we would find.”
John Churton Collins (1848–1908) British literary critic
Variant: If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find.
“It was a secret time and place, you next to me, untraceable and out of this world.”
Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up
Source: Why We Broke Up
Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer
Positive Thinking Every Day : An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year (1993), "April 13"
Earlier variant: People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. And those who have learned to have a realistic, nonegotistical belief in themselves, who possess a deep and sound self-confidence, are assets to mankind, too, for they transmit their dynamic quality to those lacking it.
You Can If You Think You Can (1987), p. 84
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes book Demon in My View
Source: Demon in My View
“It's isn't a secret, unless keeping it hurts.”
Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram
Source: Shantaram
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician
Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet
O Taste and See : New Poems (1964), The Secret
Source: Poems, 1960-1967
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Smooth Talking Stranger
Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.”
Paul Tournier (1898–1986) Swiss physician and author, pastoral counsellor
Yasmine Galenorn (1961) American writer
Source: Witchling
“Secrets have a way of making themselves felt, even before you know there's a secret.”
Jean Ferris (1939–2015) American children's writer
Source: Once Upon a Marigold
Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known.”
Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road
Source: On the Jellicoe Road
“Keep your secrets
Keep your silence
It is a better gift than truth”
Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned
Source: The Queen of the Damned
Dan Millman book Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer
Variant: The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
“Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.”
Gregory Maguire book A Lion Among Men
Source: A Lion Among Men
Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth
Variant: What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth