Quotes About Secrecy

plausible deniability.

Lo peor que puede sucederle a un espía es creer que lo aman, que se halla en una relación entre iguales, que no lo están manipulando.

One of the most powerful forces in espionage and intelligence work... is the emotional bond between the spy and spymaster, agent and handler.

Ben Macintyre

Tangle within tangle, plot and counter-plot, ruse and treachery, cross and double-cross, true agent, false agent, double agent, gold and steel, the bomb, the dagger and the firing party, were interwoven in many a texture so intricate as to be incredible and yet true. —WINSTON CHURCHILL

He revealed nothing about Ursula's activities and his own work on behalf of Soviet intelligence.

Mayne never told anyone else about his secret attempt to find the remains of his beloved friend, for that would have revealed the other, gentler side to Paddy Mayne, and a hidden broken heart.

MI5 had once worried Churchill might go "off the deep end" if he knew too much about espionage matters. It can only be imagined how far off the deep end he would have plunged had he learned not only that the Double Cross system was in danger of unraveling but that the invasion itself was in jeopardy.

Maurice Oldfield, the most senior spy in Britain, signed himself "C," in green ink, a practice first adopted by the founder of MI6, Mansfield Cumming, who imported it from the Royal Navy, where ships' captains customarily write in green ink.

live a double life, to love those around you while concealing your true inner self, to appear to be one person to the external world and quite another inside.

In wartime, the truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Philby, the veteran Soviet spy, was now in charge of Britain's anti-Soviet intelligence operations, in a position to inform Moscow not only of what Britain was doing to counter Soviet espionage but also of Britain's own espionage efforts against Moscow. The fox was not merely guarding the henhouse but building it, running it, assessing its strengths and frailties, and planning its future construction.

The fatal conceit of most spies is to believe they are loved, in a relationship between equals, and not merely manipulated.

Sam Brewer enjoyed discussing Middle Eastern politics with Philby; Philby enjoyed sleeping with his wife.

Paranoia is born of propaganda, ignorance, secrecy and fear.

Like most doctors, the fanciest ones, he seemed offensively healthy, as if he kept the real secret of vitality to himself. He would live forever and people would crumble and die around him. You were supposed to feel like death after seeing him, in terms of your complexion, your posture, your whole body. If necessary, this doctor would eat you to survive.

Everything about the presentation--the openness, the involvement of the community, the methodical plan laid out for implementing the idea--was exactly what Ting considered science done right. Science in secret as dangerous, difficult to regulate, and people who relished secrecy usually had something to hide.

The leak annoyed but didn't surprise me; I had learned that's how Washington works.

did not want journalists to spot me.

He wasn't sure of his age himself; his parents manipulated their records to keep him out of military service.

Denunciarle a quién? A lo mejor no se ha enterado usted...; no se denuncia a un cura. El clero es intocable. ¿No se lo ha dicho nadie? —¿Ni siquiera cuando es un cáncer para la comunidad? Radford suspiró. —Lo más que habría conseguido —dijo— habría sido que lo trasladaran. Es lo que hace siempre la Iglesia cuando uno de los suyos se mete en líos. Y habría continuado haciendo lo mismo en otra parte.

Michelangelo's genius was in allowing the viewer to see a great deal—in order not to show what is best left secret, except to the knowledgeable few. In other words, he put in so many trees that we cannot see the forest.

Michelangelo then summarily fired his Roman staff of assistants. He next sent for five longtime friends, all artists with experience in fresco work, to come in from Florence for the duration of the project. Some would later on be replaced, but Buonarroti hired only Florentine helpers with tightly closed lips, so that none of the Roman spies could find out what he was really putting up on the Sistine ceiling.

This had to be kept secret, of course, since only Catholic artists were allowed to work inside the Vatican, and especially in the pope's chapel. If it had been discovered that Buonarroti had denied the Church and veered into Valdesian Protestantism, he would not only have lost his career, but also his freedom—and possibly his life.