privacy

In any case, I hadn__ gone into the subject of dorm living too deeply with him, not because I hesitated to probe his tender spots but because I would have been probing my own. This is called tact, and is reputed to be a virtue.

What is a genius? A person who demands little to nothing from others, but is often found extremely difficult to have around.

And so it is inevitable that the day has come when we write about privacy with such nostalgia, analysing it as we would some unearthed fossil of a creature our human eyes had never fallen on.

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

It's idealistic, it's for love and gentleness, it's close to nature, it hurts nobody, it's voluntary. I can't see anything wrong with any of that.''Neither can I. The only trouble is, this commune will be inhabited by and surrounded by members of the human race.

The public good must come before private interests.

And do you know the story about Haydn__ head? They cut it away from the still-warm cadaver so some insane scientist could take apart the brain and pinpoint the location of musical genius. And the Einstein Story? He__ carefully written his will with instructions to cremate him. They followed his orders, but his disciple, ever loyal and devoted, refused to live without the master__ gaze on him. Before the cremation, he took the eyes of the cadaver and put them in a bottle of alcohol to keep them watching him until the moment he should die himself. That__ why I said that the crematory fire is the only way our bodies can escape them. It__ the only absolute death. And I don__ want any other. Jean-Marc, I want an absolute death.

But secluding my experience during that early period was both cowardly and wise. Some things are too fragile, too vulnerable to bring into the public eye. Tender things with tiny roots tend to wither in the glare of public scrutiny. By holding my awakening within, I contained the energy of it, and it fed me the way blood feeds muscle. It fed me a certain propelling energy, and I kept moving forward.

Secrets,_ Kohler finally said, __re a luxury we can no longer afford.

For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves not others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies. Sabina despised literature in which people give away all kinds of intimate secrets about themselves and their friends. A man who loses his privacy loses everything, Sabina thought. And a man who gives it up on his own free will is a monster. That is why Sabina did not suffer in the least from having to keep her love a secret. On the contrary, only by doing so could she live the truth.

He has never told anyone this story. He doesn't mind talking to Richard, to Rafe about his past--within reason--but he doesn't mean to give away pieces of himself.

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

You need to know things the others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.

I do not tell her about how much I look forward to going to the Wright barn. How those couple of hours in his studio feel like an escape, a refuge. Nor do I tell Rachel that I think Damian has the most beautiful hands I've ever seen, that he walks like a cat, that he has the clearest eyes, which seem able to see absolutely everything about me. That he seems to be the loneliest person I've ever met, and it breaks my heart. All of these things feel private. Precious. And I don't want to share them with Rachel. Not yet, anyway.

While you were busy trying to prove God stands behind you, God was before me lighting the trail, so he could lead us both.

The National Security Agency__ capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn__ matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.

Something needs to be said about the role of anonymity and digital pseudonyms. This is a topic for an essay unto itself, of course. Are true names really needed? Why are they asked for? Does the nation state have any valid reason to demand they be used? People want to know who they are dealing with, for psychological/evolutionary reasons and to better ensure traceability should they need to locate a person to enforce the terms of a transaction. The purely anonymous person is perhaps justifiably viewed with suspicion. And yet pseudonyms are successful in many cases. We rarely know whether someone who presents himself by some name is __ctually_ that person. Authors, artists, performers, etc., often use pseudonyms. What matters is persistence and nonforgeability. Crypto provides this.

Control people's sexuality and you control them. After all, if people allow you to dictate how they behave in the privacy of their own bedrooms, there is very little that they will not allow you to control.