If you have ambition, you might not achieve anything, but without ambition, you are almost certain not to achieve anything.

- Whitfield Diffie

I thought cryptography was a technique that did not require your trusting other people-that if you encrypted your files, you would have the control t…

- Whitfield Diffie

I have always believed the thesis that one's politics and the character of one's intellectual work are inseparable.

- Whitfield Diffie

I understood the importance in principle of public key cryptography but it's all moved much faster than I expected. I did not expect it to be a mains…

- Whitfield Diffie

If you say to people that they, as a matter of fact, can't protect their conversations, in particular their political conversations, I think you take…

- Whitfield Diffie

Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write p…

- Whitfield Diffie

Without strong encryption, you will be spied on systematically by lots of people.

- Whitfield Diffie

I liked Berkeley tremendously, Berkeley was a very leftist campus. I came to love that city as much as I love Paris or the south of France or New Yor…

- Whitfield Diffie

Some people make sharp distinctions sort of between their recreational musings and their professional work. I don't make that distinction very much

- Whitfield Diffie