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Secrecy

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Secrecy is the practice of hiding information.

Quotes

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A wise man is he who keeps his own secrets. ~ Reverend William Scott Downey
Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead. ~ Benjamin Franklin
These hard, powerful, brilliantly resourceful sea masters... found it necessary to surround themselves with super-loyal, muscular but dull-brained illiterates who could not see nor savvy their masters’ stratagems. There was great safety in the mental dullness of these henchmen. The Great Pirates realized that the only people who could possibly contrive to displace them were the truly bright people. For this reason their number-one strategy was secrecy. ~ Buckminster Fuller
Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it? ~ George R. R. Martin
Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move. ~ Sun Tzu
  • Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
  • I request that they may be considered in confidence, until the members of Congress are fully possessed of their contents, and shall have had opportunity to deliberate on the consequences of their publication; after which time, I submit them to your wisdom.
    • John Adams, message to both houses of Congress transmitting dispatches from France (April 3, 1798); in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams (1854), vol. 9, p. 158.
  • Est rosa flos Veneris cujus quo furta laterent.
    • As given in Burmann's Anthologia, Book V. 217. (1778). Sub rosa. Under the rose (i.e., secretly). The rose was emblematic of secrecy with the ancients. Cupid bribed Harpocrates, god of silence, with a rose, not to divulge the amours of Venus. Hence a host hung a rose over his tables that his guests might know that under it words spoken were to remain secret. Harpocrates is Horus, god of the rising sun. Found in Gregory Nazianzen Carmen (Ed. 1611), Volume II, p. 27.
  • I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the government in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayal. The statesmanship they require consists in honesty and frugality, a prompt response to the needs of the people as they arise, and a vigilant protection of all their varied interests.
    • Grover Cleveland, letter accepting nomination as the Democratic candidate for president (August 8, 1884), The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland (1892), p. 13.
  • The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.
    • Daniel 2:47 KJV
  • But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
    • Daniel 12:4 KJV
  • These hard, powerful, brilliantly resourceful sea masters had to sleep occasionally, and therefore found it necessary to surround themselves with super-loyal, muscular but dull-brained illiterates who could not see nor savvy their masters’ stratagems. There was great safety in the mental dullness of these henchmen. The Great Pirates realized that the only people who could possibly contrive to displace them were the truly bright people. For this reason their number-one strategy was secrecy. If the other powerful pirates did not know where you were going, nor when you had gone, nor when you were coming back, they would not know how to waylay you. If anyone knew when you were coming home, “small-tini-ers” could come out in small boats and waylay you in the dark and take you over-just before you got home tiredly after a two-year treasure ¬ harvesting voyage. Thus hijacking and second-rate piracy became a popular activity around the world’s shores and harbors. Thus secrecy became the essence of the lives of the successful pirates; ergo, how little is known today of that which I am relating.
  • Leonardo da Vinci is the outstanding example of the comprehensively anticipatory design scientist. Operating under the patronage of the Duke of Milan he designed the fortified defences and weaponry as well as the tools of peaceful production. Many other great military powers had their comprehensive design scientist-artist inventors; Michelangelo was one of them. Many persons wonder why we do not have such men today. It is a mistake to think we cannot. What happened at the time of Leonardo and Galileo was that mathematics was so unproved by the advent of the zero that not only was much more scientific shipbuilding made possible but also much more reliable navigation. Immediately thereafter truly large-scale venturing on the world’s oceans commenced, and the strong sword-leader patrons as designing their new and more powerful world-girdling ships. Next they took their Leonardos to sea with them as their seagoing Merlins to invent ever more powerful tools and strategies on a world-around basis to implement their great campaigns to best all the other great pirates, thereby enabling them to become masters of the world and of all its people and wealth.
  • While there's no 'fair use' exception when it comes to trade secrets, anyone who discovers a trade secret without violating a confidentiality agreement can disseminate it freely. For example, if you board a commuter train in Atlanta and discover that a Coca-Cola employee has left the secret formula for the company's flagship product on one of the seats, you have no obligation not to reveal it to the world. More important, this means that newspapers often may legally publish material that may have been obtained illegally, as long as they did not induce the illegal taking or know about it beforehand and as long as no one was induced or solicited by the newspaper to steal the material in question.
    • Mike Godwin (2003). Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 217. ISBN 0812928342.
  • Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest.
  • Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
  • Every true secret must exclude itself from the profane. Anyone who understands it is, through ones own accord, legitimately a person in the know.
    • Novalis, Novalis Schriften, Volume 2 (1907), p. 146
  • Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.
  • If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
    Let it be tenable in your silence still.
    And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
    Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
  • But that I am forbid,
    To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
    I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
    Would harrow up thy soul.
  • There are no secrets except the secrets that keep themselves.
    • George Bernard Shaw (Confucius, in Pt. III: The Thing Happens. - Back to Methuselah (1921)).
  • Before a stranger do nothing that should be kept secret, for you do not know what it will produce later on.
  • Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.
  • Tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus.
    • The secret wound still lives within the breast.
    • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), IV. 67.
  • 此（譯注：用間）兵之要，三軍之所恃而動也。
    • Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move.
    • Sun Tzu , The Art of War, Chapter XIII · Intelligence and Espionage (Chapter titles from Chow-Hou Wee (2003))
  • No matter where you go, there’s always a private detective or the equivalent. We’re naturally nosy, we mammals. “Other people’s secrets are always more interesting than our own,” Cate once told me. “But only because they’re secret. If we knew absolutely everything about everyone, we’d be bored out of our brains by breakfast.”

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 695-96.
  • For this thing was not done in a corner.
    • Acts, XXVI. 26.
  • When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.
  • A secret at home is like rocks under tide.
  • The secret things belong unto the Lord our God.
    • Deuteronomy, XXIX. 29.
  • As witnesses that the things were not done in a corner.
    • Gen. Thomas Harrison, defence at his trial, Account of the Trial of Twenty Regicides (1660), p. 39.
  • Arcanum neque tu scrutaveris ullius unquam, commissumve teges et vino tortus et ira.
    • Never inquire into another man's secret; but conceal that which is intrusted to you, though pressed both by wine and anger to reveal it.
    • Horace, Epistles, I. 18. 37.
  • There is a skeleton on every house.
    • Saying from story in Italian Tales of Humour, Gallantry and Romance.
  • L'on confie son secret dans l'amitié, mais il échappe dans l'amour.
    • We trust our secrets to our friends, but they escape from us in love.
    • Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, IV.
  • Toute révélation d'un secret est la faute de celui qui l'a confié.
    • When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.
    • Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, V.
  • Rien ne pèse tant qu'un secret:
    Le porter loin est difficile aux dames;
    Et je sais même sur ce fait
    Bon nombre d'hommes que sont femmes.
    • 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, Fables, VIII. 6.
  • Vitæ poscænia celant.
    • Men conceal the past scenes of their lives.
    • Lucretius, Re Rerum Natura, IV, 1,182.
  • Nothing is secret which shall not be made manifest.
    • Luke, VIII. 17.
  • I have play'd the fool, the gross fool, to believe
    The bosom of a friend will hold a secret
    Mine own could not contain.
  • There is not a crime, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.
  • Wer den kleinsten Theil eines Geheimnisses hingibt, hat den andern nicht mehr in der Gewalt.
    • He who gives up the smallest part of a secret has the rest no longer in his power.
    • Jean Paul Richter, Titon, Zykel 123.
  • Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon.
    • I Samuel. I. 20.
  • Alium silere quod voles, primus sile.
    • If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it yourself.
    • Seneca the Younger, Hippolytus, 876. Also St. Martin of Braga.
  • Latere semper patere, quod latuit diu.
  • Under the rose, since here are none but friends,
    (To own the truth) we have some private ends.
    • Jonathan Swift, Epilogue to a Benefit Play for the Distressed Weavers.
  • Miserum est tacere cogi, quod cupias loqui.
    • You are in a pitiable condition when you have to conceal what you wish to tell.
    • Syrus, Maxims.
  • Let your left hand turn away what your right hand attracts.

See also

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