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About this quote

What does it mean?
A small payment secures a private confidence with no guarantees or recourse.
In plain terms
Pay a little to keep a secret safe with no returns.
What can you take from it?
Confidentiality often comes at a small cost.

Where it applies

  • confidential dealings
  • personal trusts

Putting it to work

  • hiring confidants
  • keeping private matters

Questions to consider

  • What is the true cost of a secret?
  • When does money buy silence?

Another view

Real trust usually cannot be bought with a fixed price.

More from William Saroyan

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  2. I was an old man by the time I took that walk to the Public Library in San Francisco, because the years between birth and twenty are the years in which the sou…

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  3. We know more than we need to know.

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