#privacy

Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors. ↗

— Siri Hustvedt

#privacy #reading-secrets #men

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity. ↗

— Jean Paul

#clearly #end #father #galleries #heard

What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, So stumblest on my counsel? *Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?* ↗

— William Shakespeare

#imposition #privacy #art

Privacy about giving is counterproductive. There is solid scientific research showing that people are more likely to give if they can see that others are giving. The richest people, in particular, should be setting an example. ↗

— Peter Singer

#counterproductive #example #give #giving #likely

If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern! ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#dictatorship #gandhi #politics #privacy #religion

[T]he ways in which the information we give off about our selves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized in public. ↗

— Clay Shirky

#internet #privacy #communication

If after I die, people want to write my biography, there is nothing simpler. They only need two dates: the date of my birth and the date of my death. Between one and another, every day is mine. ↗

— Fernando Pessoa

#death #intimacy #life #poetry #privacy

Listen, Harriet. I do unterstand. I know you don't want either to give or to take ... You don't want ever again to have to depend for happiness on another person." "That's true. That's the truest thing you ever said." "All right. I can respect that. Only you've got to play the game. Don't force an emotional situation and then blame me for it." "But I don't want any situation. I want to be left in peace. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#emotions #freedom #happiness #love #peace

I want some one to sit beside after the day's pursuit and all its anguish, after its listening, its waitings, and its suspicions. After quarreling and reconciliation I need privacy--to be alone with you, to set this hubbub in order. For I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#companionship #friendship #peace #privacy #quietness

…if a thing can be said to be, to exist, then such is the nature of these expansive times that this thing which is must suffer to be touched. Ours is a time of connection; the private, and we must accept this, and it’s a hard thing to accept, the private is gone. All must be touched. All touch corrupts. All must be corrupted. And if you’re thinking how awful these sentiments are, you are perfectly correct, these are awful times, but you must remember as well that this has always been the chiefest characteristic of the Present, to everyone living through it; always, throughout history, and so far as I can see for all the days and years to come until the sun and the stars fall down and the clocks have all ground themselves to expiry and the future has long long shaded away into Time Immemorial: the Present is always an awful place to be. ↗

— Tony Kushner

#future #present #privacy #suffering #time