62 Transparency Quotes

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

We're the only branch of government that explains itself in writing every time it makes a decision.

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.

Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.

I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled.

We should not use special budget procedures to jam through legislation to drill in the Arctic Refuge. This topic is too important to the public to address it in such a back-door manner. We should be having a full, open discussion of the issue during an energy debate.

'Oh my God, you guys, I seriously do not have a speech prepared whatsoever. I'm shaking right now.'

A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?

Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.

Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, -- the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, -- endeavored to crush your well-earnt & well-deserved fame.

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?

The 'line of the day' among administration spokesmen, confronted by masses of destitute and terrified refugees and solid reports of the mass execution of civilians, is to say that 'we expected this to happen.' They did? (They never told anyone.) If they want to avoid being indicted for war crimes themselves, these 'spokesmen' had better promise us that they were lying when they said that.

Christopher Reeve turned his focus away from his paralysis and began figuring out how he could live afresh. Reeve decided that a lot of people might like to hear his story. Instead of limiting the communication of his story to letters, books and videos subject to edit, Reeve chose the lecture circuit. That meant showing up in public, allowing the public to gawk at his incapacity, talking about his condition and sharing lessons learned. Thus, Christopher Reeve has become Superman for real.

As you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say.

I do not believe that the President was in any way directly involved in the leaking of her identity, but that was a very disillusioning moment for me when I found out when it initially hit the press, and I was in North Carolina, if I remember correctly, and a reporter shouted out to the President, 'Is it true that you authorized the secret leaking of this classified information?' We walked onto Air Force One, and the Presidents asks, 'What was the reporter asking?', and I said, 'He asserted that you were the one who authorized Scooty Libby leaking this information,' and he said, 'Yeah, I did.'

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

They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why. I demand on behalf of the America people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted.

The President is off to a bad start. He owes the American people honest answers on whether he wants to reform Social Security or privatize it.

No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.

It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't. She's advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.

Yet it is incumbent on those in high places to make wise decisions and it is reasonable and important that the public be correctly informed. It is consequently incumbent on all of us to state the facts as forthrightly as possible.

Tor is the hard one. They employ a lot of editors, whose tastes vary. They don't always indicate who has edited what (on the choice of the editor, I think) so editor stalking can be more difficult with Tor. Ear-tagging works but is rather surprisingly illegal.

Whenever you take a stand on an issue, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it. By having an opinion, you make yourself a target. Why do you think Congress likes to hide behind closed doors at decision-making time? I put all the city council meetings on public TV, over the good old boys' objections. Exposure creates an educated, involved public, which isn't in the interests of the old-boy network.

Truscott: Do you realize what I'm doing here? McLeavy: No. Your every action has been a mystery to me. Truscott: That is as it should be. The process by which the police arrive at the solution to a mystery is, in itself, a mystery.

'Any Bill is drafted without consulting any party or stakeholders is because it contains what the Government wants to be included in the Bill.' (20 May 2005, explaining why he had not consulted the Great Council of Chiefs on the legislation).

It is necessary to restore the dignity of the presidential office and cut it off decisively from non-transparent connections... For the first time in many years, I see a chance in Poland for major change. The presidential office can guarantee that these changes are carried out without undermining the social equilibrium.

I have even seen writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India's expense. I can only answer that Satyagraha is made of sterner stuff. There is nothing reserved and nothing secret in it.

'It might interest you to know that our state is tired of being used as a chemical toilet so that people in Utah can have plastic lawn furniture.' 'I can't believe an assistant attorney general came right out and said that.' 'Well, I wouldn't say it in public.'

Nothing should be done to impede people from teaching and doing their research even if at that very moment it was being used to massacre and destroy. [...] the radical students and I wanted to keep the labs on campus, on the principle that what is going to be going on anyway ought to be open and above board, so that people would know what is happening and act accordingly.

If you tell what you know, everyone is wiser. If you keep a secret, then everyone is a fool.

I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment. It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way. We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment.

I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and the chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which, to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned.

I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad. In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Transparent, weightless, luminous/ Uncovering the two of us/ On that fundamental ground/ Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound/ And half the perfect world is found.'

If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian.

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.

I would like to create a speedier and more efficient system. Careers and reputations are at stake, and it would be good to be able to inject a sense of calm and transparency into procedures.

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operations of the international moneylenders... the accounts of the Federal Reserve have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and ... manipulates the credit of the United States