secrecy quotes

All classes of society are trade unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.

-William Stanley Jevons
  The State in Relation to Labour, introduction.

They live off secrecy†[it] keep the mistakes secret.

- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
  Of government intelligence agencies. President Kennedy.

   We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on.There isnot a crime, there isnot a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.

-Joseph Pulitzer
c.1910  Quoted in Alleyne Ireland An Adventure with a Genius, ch.4.

Secrecy is the first essential in the affairs of State.

-Cardinal Richelieu
  Testament Politique.