Secret quotes
3.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside secret — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Both love of mankind, and respect for their rights are duties; the former however is only a conditional, the latter an unconditional, purely imperative duty, which he must be perfectly certain not to have transgressed who would give himself up to the secret emotions arising from benevolence."
"I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery."
"Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion: that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly."
"That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms."
"Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness."
"The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events."
"Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart."
"On the other hand, the pleasure caused by laughter, even on the stage, is not an unadulterated enjoyment; it is not a pleasure that is exclusively esthetic or altogether disinterested. It always implies a secret or unconscious intent, if not of each one of us, at all events of society as a whole. In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate, and consequently to correct our neighbour, if not in his will, at least in his deed."
"Should we even have the classification system? Why shouldn't these things be open? There are things you want to keep secret, like the characteristics of your latest fighter plane or something like that."
"Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon his memory."
"The parasites live where the great have little secret sores."
"Madness is the first step towards unselfishness. Be mad and tell us what is behind the veil of "sanity". The purpose of life is to bring us closer to those secrets, and madness is the only means."
"You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life."
"Like sheaves of corn it gathers you unto itself. It threshes you to make you naked. It sifts you to free you from your husks. It grinds you to whiteness. It kneads you until you are pliant. And then it assigns you to its sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's Heart."
"The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow."
"She said 'I love you' as if it were a secret, and an immense one."
"The secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle"
"The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth,--that is the secret of the fine arts."
"The secret is to write just anything, to dare to write just anything, because when you write just anything, you begin to say what is important."
"The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one's own rules."
