81 Secrecy Quotes

It is difficult for a statesman who still has a political future to reveal everything that he knows: and in a profession in which one is a baby at 50 and middle-aged at seventy-five, it is natural that anyone who has not actually been disgraced should feel that he still has a future.

But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years.

But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.

It is still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really injures a performer.

You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the deadly knowledge, is still kept secret. But, believe me, my friend, it is there.

True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved.

The sane understand that human beings are incapable of sustaining conspiracies on a grand scale, because some of our most defining qualities as a species are inattention to detail, a tendency to panic, and an inability to keep our mouths shut.

Three may keep counsel, if two be away.

I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident. :-)

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

O rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm, That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!

Johansen, thank God, did not know quite all, even though he saw the city and the Thing, but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea, known and favoured by a nightmare cult ready and eager to loose them upon the world whenever another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun and air.

We can say what we like without favour or fear and what we can't say we can breathe in your ear

Never write a letter and never destroy one

Savoir dissimuler est le savoir des rois.

Marta blinked at him with manufactured innocence. 'Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you're trying to keep it a sectret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone'?

I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely; if I am tired and dejected from a night of lies or booze or sex or just nerves and insomnia, I can almost smell the disaster mounting invisibly and flooding out toward me through the frosted glass panes. My hands may perspire, and my voice may come out strange. I wonder why. Something must have happened to me sometime.

on Iron Chef America: To be honest, I don't know who the competitors will be. When taping the episodes, I know what the secret ingredient is going to be ahead of time, but that's about it. But even that information is highly privileged. It's like they send me this encrypted message that says, 'Go to the phone booth near the corner and await further instructions. This message will self destruct in five seconds...' It's very secretive, but it's a really fun show to do.

There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!

If I did, I wouldn't tell you.

Peu d'amities subsisteraient, si chacun savait ce que son ami dit de lui lorsqu'il n'y est pas. (100)

'If I tell you, I'll have to kill you.'

The thing was not discussable, even with a near acquaintance like Calvin because : because of the nature of the thing : because one had to behave like a normal, unworried human being. That at least was sound and clear and gave him comfort: behave like a normal human being.

These people, scattered all over the country, a few of them on the continent, were much like normal people. To outsiders, their relationship was not apparent; they certainly never revealed it; they never met. They became traders, captains of ships that traded with the Indies, soldiers, parliamentarians, agriculturists; some plunged into, some avoided, the constitutional struggles that dogged most of the seventeenth century. But they were all - male or female - Franks. They had the inexpressible benefit of their progenitor's one hundred and seventy-odd years' experience, and not only of his, but of all the other Franks. It was small wonder that, with few exceptions, whatever they did they prospered.

So he hid [the watch] in the one place he knew he could hide something-his ass.

I used to receive a hundred calls a year from people who wanted me to get into the Green Room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, because that's where the Air Force stored all the material gathered on UFOs. I once asked Curtis LeMay if I could get in that room, and he just gave me holy hell. He said, 'Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again.'

That's cuz she ain't ever gonna know, bitch!

Leonard Washington : My name's Leonard Washington. Where I'm from? A little town called None Of Your Goddamn Business.

'If you ever want to hide something from (Louisiana attorney general) Jack Gremillion, put it in a law book.'

Exposure of the secrets of the fire-eaters, for instance, dates back almost to the beginning of the art itself.

Truscott: I'm no fool. Fay: Your secret is safe with me.

You remember this little boy; they never tell you anymore truth than they have to.

When you decide to hide something from me, will you at least tell me that aren't going to tell me?

Special Correspondence. I learn from a very high authority, whose name I am not at liberty to mention, (speaking to me at a place which I am not allowed to indicate and in a language which I am forbidden to use)--that Austria-Hungary is about to take a diplomatic step of the highest importance. What this step is, I am forbidden to say. But the consequences of it--which unfortunately I am pledged not to disclose--will be such as to effect results which I am not free to enumerate.

What's he building in there? We have a right to know.

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?

I grieve and dare not show my discontent, I love and yet am forced to seem to hate, I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.

A few of the young women, led by Lucy, organized the first debating society ever formed among college girls. At first they held their meetings secretly in the woods, with sentinels on the watch to give warming of intruders. When the weather grew colder, Lucy asked an old colored woman who owned a small house, the mother of one of her colored pupils, to let them have the use of her parlor. At first she was doubtful, fearing that the meetings might be a cover for flirtation; but when she found that the debating society was made up of girls only, she decided that it must be an innocent affair, and gave her consent. Her house was on the outskirts of the town, and the girls came one or two at a time, so as not to attract attention. Lucy opened the first formal meeting with the following statement: 'We shall leave this college with the reputation of a thorough collegiate course, yet not one of use has received any rhetorical or elocutionary training. Not one of us could state a question or argue it in successful debate. For this reason I have propsed the formation of this association.'

Upon a darkened night the flame of love was burning in my breast And by a lantern bright I fled my house while all in quiet rest. Shrouded by the night and by the secret stair I quickly fled. The veil concealed my eyes while all within lay quiet as the dead.

Where do you think I was today? I stood straight in front of him (Himmler) for a whole hour and talked, and he... he played with a puzzle the whole time - you know, this glass cube with three balls on the inside... When I finished, he took off his pince-nez, wiped it with a handkerchief - he has a skull even on his handkerchief - and said, 'Listen, Ernst! Have you by any chance, ever had a dream, where you're riding in the back of a ragged truck to who knows where, and some monsters are sitting around you?' I didn't say anything. Then he smiled and said, 'Ernst, you know, I know as well as you that no astral exists. But what do you think, if you, and even Canaris, have your own people in 'Annenerbe', shouldn't I have my own people there as well?' I did not understand what he meant. 'Think Ernst, think!' he said. I kept silent. Then he smiled and asked, 'Whose man do you think is Kroger?' ...Yes, Emma... It seems I'm too simple for all these intrigues... But I know that while the Fuhrer needs me, my heart will keep beating...You know, Emma... Sometimes it seems to me, that it's not me who is alive, but it's the Fuhrer who is living inside me...

Men of science in former ages worked in secret, and instead of publishing their discoveries, taught them in secret to carefully selected pupils.

On that subject I am coy.

How very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. On the contrary, if a man has by any chance an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts.

'As for that,' said Waldenshare, 'sensible men are all of the same religion.' 'Pray, what is that?' inquired the Prince. 'Sensible men never tell.'

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments' plans.

For me, the scariest thing about a serial killer is that there's somebody who lives next door to you, running power tools late into the night, and you don't know he has a refrigerator full of penises.

The world never knows, and cannot for the life of it imagine, what this man sees in that maid and that maid in this man. The world cannot think why they fell in love with each other. But they have their reason, their beautiful secret, that never gets told to more than one person; and what they see in each other is what they show to each other; and it is the truth. Only they kept it hidden in their hearts until the time came. And though you and I may never know why this lane is called Shelley's, to us both it will always be the greenest lane in Sussex, because it leads to the special secret I spoke of.

Despite all expectations, the time of my last campaign and of my passing is near. I wish to die at home. Let not my end disarm you, and on no account weep for me, lest the enemy be warned of my death.

If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.

Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch Patton'.

I have done one braver thing Than all the Worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring, Which is to keep that hid.

Never tell your resolution beforehand.

The enemy holds every trump card, covering all areas with long-range air patrols and using location methods against which we still have no warning...The enemy knows all our secrets and we know none of his.

Never tell everything at once.

We need to tranquilize our neighbors. State officials ought to remain in ignorance. Let the Armenians wait, opportunities will certainly come our way too. Turkey belongs only to the Turks.

Man is too thoroughly an egoist not to be also an egotist; if he love, the object shall know it. During a lifetime he may conceal it through stress of expediency and honour, but it shall bubble from his dying lips, though it disrupt a neighbourhood. It is known, however, that most men do not wait so long to disclose their passion. In the case of Lorison, his particular ethics positively forbade him to declare his sentiments, but he must needs dally with the subject, and woo by innuendo at least.

This is one of the most highly secret matters there are, perhaps the most secret. Anybody who speaks about it is shot dead immediately. Two talkative people died yesterday.

The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.

When asked, 'Should I tell my mother I'm gay?' I answer, 'Never tell your mother anything.'

Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough girls and boys to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy. I've read that there used to be a time when a taxpayer could demand the facts on anything and get them. I don't know; it sounds Utopian.

Five and twenty ponies Trotting through the dark- Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie - Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions - largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none: But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.

No less a philosopher than Chief Justice Burger was outraged by Ellsberg's publication of classified documents. They belonged to the Government, Burger reasoned, and Ellsberg had no more right to give them to the people than he would have to filch another man's property off a taxicab seat. The Government, of course, commonly leaks classified documents when it deems publication convenient to manipulate public opinion to its advantage. Only the Government, it seems, has a legal right to manipulate opinion with hot documents.

I hope that when he smiles at me He does not guess my joy and pain, For if he did, he is too kind To ever look my way again.

I am the only being whose doom No tongue would ask no eye would mourn I never caused a thought of gloom A smile of joy since I was born In secret pleasure - secret tears This changeful life has slipped away As friendless after eighteen years As lone as on my natal day

Everybody knows that you love me baby/ Everybody knows that you really do/ Everybody knows that you've been faithful/ Ah give or take a night or two/ Everybody knows you've been discreet/ But there were so many people you just had to meet/ without your clothes/ And everybody knows