PRIVACY QUOTES II

quotations about privacy

Privacy quote

I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.

ROBERT BROWNING

Paracelsus

Tags: Robert Browning


We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.

WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS

dissenting opinion, Osborn v. United States, 1966


The types of collection in the book -- microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us -- are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.

EDWARD SNOWDEN

"Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission's accomplished", Washington Post, December 23, 2013


Maybe all of us ... had little secrets like that -- little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone without fears and longing.

KAZUO ISHIGURO

Never Let Me Go


But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.

JHUMPA LAHIRI

The Namesake


There is no such thing as privacy anymore; there is secrecy.

RICH HERSH

attributed, Instagram


There is a self-imposed privacy less easily invaded than convent walls.

HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN

The Optimist: A Series of Essays


There is a privacy in every man's conduct that policy should teach him to retain.

NORMAN MACDONALD

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Norman MacDonald


Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important -- it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not -- but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone.

NICK HARKAWAY

The Blind Giant


Intimacy is an important part of a happy relationship, but so is a healthy respect for each other's privacy.

LESLIE BECKER-PHELPS

"How Much Privacy Is Good for a Relationship?", WebMD, June 1, 2016


In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.

JAMES MADISON

Letters and Other Writings of James Madison

Tags: James Madison


All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life

Tags: Gabriel Garcia Marquez


The trouble is that privacy is at once essential to, and in tension with, both freedom and security. A cabinet minister who keeps his mistress in satin sheets at the French taxpayer's expense cannot justly object when the press exposes his misuse of public funds. Our freedom to scrutinise the conduct of public figures trumps that minister's claim to privacy. The question is: where and how do we draw the line between a genuine public interest and that which is merely what interests the public?

TIMOTHY GARTON ASH

"Whether it's hacking or the NSA, some of us don't accept that privacy is dead", The Guardian, October 31, 2013

Tags: Timothy Garton Ash


The privacy that older generations once enjoyed is now the stuff of nostalgia. Younger people have a different understanding of what it entails. Those who grew up being able to stay in constant touch with their friends have come of age and are reshaping the world accordingly. We live in times when a personal relationship can be jettisoned because a digital message goes unanswered for a few minutes too long, where couples announce their decisions to divorce on Instagram.

EDITOR

The Nation, May 28, 2016


Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Asfixia

Tags: Chuck Palahniuk


Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

AYN RAND

The Fountainhead

Tags: Ayn Rand


Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly urbane culture. Out of the cave, the tribal tepee, the pueblo, the community fortress, man emerged to build himself a house of his own with a shelter in it for himself and his diversions. Every age has seen it so. The poor might have to huddle together in cities for need's sake, and the frontiersman cling to his neighbors for the sake of protection. But in each civilization, as it advanced, those who could afford it chose the luxury of a withdrawing-place.

PHYLLIS MCGINLEY

"A Lost Privilege", The Province of the Heart

Tags: Phyllis McGinley


To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.

ANTHONY BURGESS

Homage to Qwert Yuiop: Essays


Privacy is the space bad people need to do bad things in.

PAUL MCMULLAN

statement to the Leveson Inquiry, November 29, 2011


Privacy is no longer a condition of American life, and is likely in the future to be something that only the rich will be able to purchase.

LEE RAINIE

"Making Information Pay: Is Privacy Becoming a Commodity?", Publishers Weekly, May 27, 2016