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Secrecy Quotes

Browse 431 quotes about Secrecy.

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Secrecy Quotes

“The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science and democracy began - in their civilized incarnations - in the same time and place, Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. . . . Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty.”

IdeasReasonValuesOpinionCasesDemocracySpecialCenturyHonestyPositionDemandStandardsEvidenceArgumentDebateThriveCivilizedHumanistPrivilegedAdequateGreeceSecrecyIncarnationVigorousUnconventionalVantage Point
Author:Carl Sagan
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“The year that Rutherford died (1938 [sic]) there disappeared forever the happy days of free scientific work which gave us such delight in our youth. Science has lost her freedom. Science has become a productive force. She has become rich but she has become enslaved and part of her is veiled in secrecy. I do not know whether Rutherford would continue to joke and laugh as he used to.”

KnowsYearsUsedLostForceSecretLaughingForeverRichYouthJokesDiedDelightProductiveSecrecyHappy DayBecome Rich
Author:Pyotr Kapitsa
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“In our culture privacy is often confused with secrecy. Open, honest, truth-telling individuals value privacy. We all need spaces where we can be alone with thoughts and feelings - where we can experience healthy psychological autonomy and can choose to share when we want to. Keeping secrets is usually about power, about hiding and concealing information.”

WantNeedsFeelingsValuesCultureIndividualSpaceSecretShareHonestInformationHealthyPsychologicalConfusedPrivacyTelling The TruthHidingAutonomySecrecyThoughts And FeelingsHonest TruthConcealingKeeping Secrets
Author:Bell Hooks
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“Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an angry god — and always like a god.”

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Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“Knowing has two poles, and they are always poles apart: carnal knowing, the laying on of hands, the hanging of the fact by head or heels, the measurement of mass and motion, the calibration of brutal blows, the counting of supplies; and spiritual knowing, invisibly felt by the inside self, who is but a fought-over field of distraction, a stage where we recite the monotonous monologue that is our life, a knowing governed by internal tides, by intimations, motives, resolutions, by temptations, secrecy, shame, and pride.”

TwoSelfFactsHandsSpiritualSpiritualityFeltKnowledgeKnowingOur LivesStageFieldsPrideMassShameBlowTemptationMotiveInternalsResolutionDistractionTidesHeelsBrutalSecrecyCountingMeasurementSuppliesMonotonousMonologuesCalibration
Book:Finding a Form: Essays
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“Those without the gate frequently question the wisdom and right of the occultist to guard his knowledge by the imposition of oaths of secrecy. We are so accustomed to see the scientist give his beneficent discoveries freely to all mankind that we feel that humanity is wronged and defrauded if any knowledge be kept secret by its discoverers and not at once made available for all who desire to share in it. The knowledge is reserved in order that humanity may be protected from its abuse at the hands of the unscrupulous.”

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Author:Dion Fortune
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“So far as I know, there were no pains taken to preserve secrecy on this subject; that is, I saw no attempt made to keep any of the inmates of the Convent in ignorance of the murder of children.”

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Book:Awful disclosures of Maria Monk, a narrative of her sufferings in the Hotel Dieu nunnery at Montreal
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“In our system, grand juries take every charge, every lie, and they try to sort the truth from the lies, and then they move forward into the system. And that's how the system ought to work. We should respect the secrecy of the grand jury so they can sort through what's true and what's not. And someone is leaking, and if they are leaking from the grand jury investigation, then that's a violation of the law.”

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Author:Paul Begala
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“For nearly 2,000 years of Christian civilization, taking the life of an unborn child was regarded as a vile and heinous moral offense which degraded humanity. . . . Abortions to avoid illegitimate births, or otherwise for convenience, were performed with a secrecy that was as much the mark of the shame attaching to the deed as a consequence of its illegality.”

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Author:Ronald Butt
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“My activities, for which I gratefully accept this Award, are today what they have been for over thirty-five years and will be for the rest of my life: to counter governmental secrecy about the nuclear arms race that threatens the survival of life on earth; and to help build a world movement that will prevent a first use since Nagasaki of nuclear explosions, prevent or end interventions that could lead to such an event, and bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.”

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Author:Daniel Ellsberg
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“Nuclear weapons production and testing has involved extensive health and environmental damage .... One of the most remarkable features of this damage has been the readiness of governments to harm the very people that they claimed they were protecting by building these weapons for national security reasons. In general, this harm was inflicted on people in disregard of democratic norms. Secrecy, fabrication of data, cover-ups in the face of attempted public inquiry, and even human experiments without informed consent have all occurred in nuclear weapons production and testing programs.”

PeopleHumansHas BeensReasonGovernmentFacesSecurityBuildingInvolvedWeaponsProgramDemocraticEnvironmentalProductionsHarmNuclearExperimentsDataFeaturesDamageRemarkableNuclear WeaponsConsentNational SecurityNormInquiryTestingSecrecyDisregardReadinessCover UpsFabricationInformed ConsentEnvironmental Damage
Author:Arjun Makhijani
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