PRIVACY QUOTES III
quotations about privacy
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
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
Private interests must yield to public good.
EDMUND GETTY
The Last King of Ulster
Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order ... and the like.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
Points of Rebellion
All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.
KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD
Modes and Morals
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
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
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
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
There is no such thing as privacy anymore; there is secrecy.
RICH HERSH
attributed, Instagram
There is a privacy in every man's conduct that policy should teach him to retain.
NORMAN MACDONALD
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is a palpable sense that the dynamic of privacy has changed from one in which you are private by default, to one in which you are public by default, and private by effort.
LEE RAINIE
"Making Information Pay: Is Privacy Becoming a Commodity?", Publishers Weekly, May 27, 2016
In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
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