Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction.
Interpretation
Secrecy can lead to a habitual need to hide the truth, which can be difficult to break free from.
The quote by Edward Teller suggests that once we start keeping secrets, it can lead to a compulsive behavior where we continuously feel the need to conceal information. This addiction to secrecy not only affects our relationships and communication but can also create a barrier to trust and transparency, ultimately impacting our moral and ethical standings.
In practice
In a speech about transparency in government, you might use this quote to emphasize the dangers of hidden agendas.
In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.
The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.
The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives.
Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy.
No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect.
I tried to contribute to the defeat of the Soviets. If I contributed 1%, it is 1% of something enormous.
Religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis.
There will never cease to be ferment in the world unless people are sure of their food.
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.
What we experience is our own concept of things. That is why no two people see quite the same world, and why, in many cases, different people see such different worlds. To put it another way, we make our own world by the way in which we think; for we really do live in a world of our own thoughts.
The history of the world is the world's court of justice.
All manifest life seems to require a period of sleep, of calm, in which to gain added strength, renewed vigour, for the next manifestation, or awakening to activity. Thus is the march of all progress, of all manifest life - in waves, successive waves, [of] activity and repose. Waves succeed each other in an endless chain of progression.
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