Lapham’s Quarterly

Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the observing world.

Even a paranoid can have enemies.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.

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

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

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

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

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.

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

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

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

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

Secrecy lies at the very core of power.

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

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

There is a sickness among tyrants: they cannot trust their friends.