PRIVACY QUOTES III

quotations about privacy

Privacy quote

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


Private life favoreth happiness.

SEE-MA-KOANG

attributed, Day's Collacon


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


Excessive privacy and constant retirement are apt to make men out of humor with others, and too fond of themselves.

REV. J. CAIRD

attributed, Day's Collacon


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

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life

Tags: Gabriel Garcia Marquez


For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Walden

Tags: Henry David Thoreau


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


All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.

KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD

Modes and Morals


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


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


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


Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street; if thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them.

FRANCIS QUARLES

Enchiridion Institutions

Tags: Francis Quarles


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 empowerment given ordinary citizens by the social media is testing the limits of just how much personal privacy can be chipped away. The digital revolution is fuelling a competition that not long ago was the exclusive territory of the professional news media. And when it comes to being the first to report a story, "healthy competition" can turn nasty in a hurry.

EDITOR

The Nation, May 28, 2016