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secret quotes

  • But there remains the question: what righteousness really is. The method and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus.

    - Matthew Arnold
      Literature and Dogma, ch.12.

  • The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.7,'Of Parents and Children'.

  • Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret.

    - Brendan Francis Behan
      The Lover's Watch,'Four o'Clock. General Conversation'.

  • The secret things belong unto the L our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children forever, that we maydoall the words of this law.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDDeuteronomy 29:29.

  •    I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms139:14^16.

  • Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 9:17.

  • Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men,Verily I say unto you,They have their reward.But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 6:2^4.

  • But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 6:6^7.

  • Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore, Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, Then trembles into silence as before.

    -Rochdale
      The Corsair,'Medora's Song', canto1, stanza14.

  • Keep up appearances; there lies the test; The world will give thee credit for the rest. Outward be fair, however foul within; Sin if thou wilt, but then in secret sin.

    - Charles Churchill
      Night, l.311^12.

  • We have to be honest, we have to be truthful and speak to the one dirty secret in American life, and that is racism.

    - Henry Cisneros
      In US News and World Report,19  Apr.

  • I know that's a secret, for it's whispered every where.

    -William Congreve
      Tattle to Scandal. Love for Love, act 3, sc.3.

  •    Humanity i love you because you are perpetually putting the secret of life in your pants and forgetting it's there and sitting down on it.

    - e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings cummings
      XLI Poems, no.2,'La Guerre'.

  • The members of our secret service have apparently spent so much time looking under the bed for Communists that they haven't had time to look in the bed.

    - Michael Mackintosh Foot
       Attributed comment on the Profumo scandal.

  •   We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. 339

    - Robert Lee Frost
      'The Secret Sits', complete poem.

  • Personne ne garde un secret comme un enfant. No one keeps a secret like a child.

    -Victor Marie Hugo
      Les Mise  rables, vol.2, bk.7, ch.8.

  • Un homme est plus fide'  le au secret d'autrui qu'au sien propre; une femme au contraire garde mieux son secret que celui d'autrui. A man keeps another person's secret better than his own; a woman, on the contrary, keeps her own secrets better than those of others.

    -Jean de La Bruye'  re
      Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'Des femmes', no.58.

  • In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize†only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

    -Tom (Thomas Andrew) Lehrer
      'Lobachevski', satirical song.

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

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

  •    Glaubt es mir!das Geheimnis, um die gr o« Þte Fruchtbarkeit und den gr o« Þten Genuss vom Dasein einzuernten, heiÞt: gef a« hrlich leben! For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment isto live dangerously.

    - FriedrichWilhelm Nietzsche
      Die fro«  hliche Wissenschaft ( The Gay Science), section 283 (translated by W Kaufmann).

  • Forgive and be happy. That is the ancient secret†the only wisdom ever to be attained.

    - Hugh Prather
      The Quiet Answer.

  • Why is there always a secret singing When a lawyer cashes in? Why does a hearse horse snicker Hauling a lawyer away?

    - Carl Sandburg
      Smoke and Steel,'The Lawyers KnowToo Much'.

  • There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Sir George Crofts. MrsWarren's Profession, act 3.

  • The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Parents and Children.

  • Pylons, those pillars Bare like nude, giant girls that have no secret.

    - Sir Stephen Harold Spender
      'Pylons'.

  • Thesecret of managing a ball club istokeepthefiveguys who hate you away from the five who are undecided.

    - Casey (Charles Dillon) Stengel
    Quoted in ColinJarmanThe Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • Thereisnosecret so closeasthat betweena riderand his horse.

    - Robert Smith Surtees
    Attributed.

  • The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged13.

    - Sue Townsend
    34 1982  Title of book.

  • She was rich in apparel, but not bedizened with finery† She well knew the great architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct a decoration.

    - Anthony Trollope
      Of Mrs Stanhope. BarchesterTowers, ch.9.

  • There's no secret.You just press the accelerator to the floor and steer left.

    - Bill Vukovich
      Of his tactics in the Indianapolis 500. Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • There were many ways of not burdening one's conscience, of shunning responsibility, looking away, keeping silent.When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust became known at the end of the war, all too many of us claimed that they had not known anything about it, orevensuspectedanything† Whoeverrefuses to remember the inhumanity is prone to new risks of infection† Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.

    - Richard Freiherr, Baron von Weizsa«  cker
      On the 40th anniversary of the end of WorldWar II, in the NewYorkTimes,12 May.

  • Covertly the hands of a great clock go round and round! Were they to move quickly and at once the whole secret would be out and the shuffling of all ants be done forever.

    -William Carlos Williams
    Sour Grapes,'Overture to a Dance of Locomotives'.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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