Quotes about secrets

"Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity."

Acton, Lord on secrets
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"Our true history is scarcely ever deciphered by others. The chief part of the drama is a monologue, or rather an intimate debate between God, our conscience, and ourselves. Tears, grieves, depressions, disappointments, irritations, good and evil thoughts, decisions, uncertainties, deliberations --all these belong to our secret, and are almost all incommunicable and intransmissible, even when we try to speak of them, and even when we write them down."

Amiel, Henri Frederic on secrets
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"You know there are no secrets in America. It's quite different in England, where people think of a secret as a shared relation between two people."

Auden, W. H. on secrets   

"To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself."

Beecher, Henry Ward on secrets
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"Secrets travel fast in Paris."

Bonaparte, Napoleon on secrets   

"What one hides is worth neither more nor less than what one finds. And what one hides from oneself is worth neither more nor less than what one allows others to find."

Breton, Andre on secrets   

"Secrecy is the badge of fraud."

Chadwick, Sir John on secrets   

"Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on secrets   

"I know that's a secret, for it's whispered everywhere."

Congreve, William on secrets
7 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A man's most open actions have a secret side to them."

Conrad, Joseph on secrets   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Men with secrets tend to be drawn to each other, not because they want to share what they know but because they need the company of the like-minded, the fellow afflicted."

Delillo, Don on secrets
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"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."

Dickens, Charles on secrets
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"His mind of man, a secret makes I meet him with a start he carries a circumference in which I have no part."

Dickinson, Emily on secrets   

"Three can keep a secret if two are dead."

Franklin, Benjamin on secrets
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"He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore."

Freud, Sigmund on secrets
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"We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."

Frost, Robert on secrets
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"Your secret is your prisoner; once you reveal it, you become its slave."

Gabirol, Ibn on secrets
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"Where secrecy reigns, carelessness and ignorance delight to hide while skill loves the light."

Gelman, Daniel C. on secrets   

"Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on secrets
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"Women's propensity to share confidences is universal. We confirm our reality by sharing."

Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti on secrets   

"The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame."

Hobbes, Thomas on secrets
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"Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on secrets
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"Never tell a secret to a bride or a groom; wait until they have been married longer."

Howe, Edgar Watson on secrets   

"Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us."

Hubbard, Elbert on secrets   

"No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child."

Hugo, Victor on secrets   

"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."

Johnson, Samuel on secrets   

"To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly."

Johnson, Samuel on secrets
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"The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

Johnson, Samuel on secrets   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A man can keep a secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others."

La Bruyere, Jean De on secrets
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"Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret."

La Fontaine, Jean De on secrets   

"How can we accept another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves."

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De on secrets
5 fans of this quote   

"Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers."

Lavater, Johann Kaspar on secrets   

"When a friend, then, indulges in the joy of unburdening a secret on to another friend's bosom, he makes the latter, in his turn, feel the urge to taste the same joy himself. He implores him, it is true, not to tell a soul; but if such a condition were taken absolutely literally, it would at once cut off the flow of these joys at their very source. The general practice is for the secret to be confided only to an equally trustworthy friend, the same conditions being imposed on him. And so from trustworthy friend to trustworthy friend the secret goes moving on round that immense chain, until finally it reaches the ears of just the very person or persons whom the first talker had expressly intended it never should reach."

Manzoni, Alessandro on secrets   

"But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon."

Milton, John on secrets
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"What is told into the ear of a man is often heard a hundred miles away."

Proverb, Chinese on secrets   

"Tell your friend a lie. If he keeps it secret, then tell him the truth."

Proverb, Portuguese on secrets
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"A secret between two is God's secret, between three is all mens."

Proverb, Spanish on secrets   

"Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of the State."

Richelieu, Cardinal De on secrets   

"The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it."

Rousseau, Jean Jacques on secrets   

"It is wise to disclose what cannot be concealed."

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von on secrets