I will never again command an army in America if we must carry along paid spies. I will banish myself to some foreign country first.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1863Once suspicion is aroused, everything feeds it.
—Amelia Edith Barr, 1885For sooner will men hold fire in their mouths than keep a secret.
—Petronius, c. 60Secrecy lies at the very core of power.
—Elias Canetti, 1960Secrets define us, they mark us, they set us apart from all the others. The secrets which we preserve provide a key to who we are, deep down.
—Nuruddin Farah, 1998Spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895It was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.
—Cory Doctorow, 2013To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968Guard more faithfully the secret which is confided to you than the money which is entrusted to your care.
—Isocrates, c. 370 BCIf you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.
—David Sedaris, 2004The first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him.
—Umberto Eco, 1980The life of spies is to know, not be known.
—George Herbert, c. 1621Even a paranoid can have enemies.
—Henry Kissinger, 1977There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1735Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any program our fear has sketched out.
—George Eliot, 1860Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the observing world.
—Aleksandr Pushkin, 1837A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
—P.D. James, 1992There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.
—Francis Bacon, 1625We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
—William Hazlitt, 1823There is a sickness among tyrants: they cannot trust their friends.
—Aeschylus, c. 458 BC