Archive

Quotes

If you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.

—David Sedaris, 2004

For sooner will men hold fire in their mouths than keep a secret.

—Petronius, c. 60

It was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.

—Cory Doctorow, 2013

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1735

The first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him.

—Umberto Eco, 1980

Spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead.

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850

Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any program our fear has sketched out.

—George Eliot, 1860

Even a paranoid can have enemies.

—Henry Kissinger, 1977

To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.

—Quentin Crisp, 1968

Guard more faithfully the secret which is confided to you than the money which is entrusted to your care.

—Isocrates, c. 370 BC

The life of spies is to know, not be known.

—George Herbert, c. 1621