Secrecy is as indispensable to human beings as fire, and as greatly feared.
Interpretation
Secrecy is a fundamental aspect of human nature that is both essential and often feared.
This quote by Sissela Bok highlights the dual role of secrecy in human life. While it is a necessary tool for personal autonomy and protection, it also elicits fear due to its potential for misuse and the unknowns it can create in relationships and society. Secrecy can provide safety, akin to fire, but it also has the capacity to harm if wielded irresponsibly.
In practice
In a discussion about privacy, one might say, 'As Sissela Bok reminds us, secrecy is indispensable to human beings as fire.'
I believe that a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society.... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless.
To mature is in part to realize that while complete intimacy and omniscience and power cannot be had, self-transcendence, growth, and closeness to others are nevertheless within one's reach.
Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived.
Trust is a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse
Are people the best judges of their own happiness, or outsiders? In defining happiness, should we think of entire lives or of shorter periods such as moments, days, or years? And to what extent are virtue and happiness linked?
We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect.
I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.
We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under . . . The fourth category, the rarest, is the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.
It suddenly occurred to me that every move on the chessboard is old and has been played by somebody at some time. Maybe our own history has been played out by somebody at some time, and we just move our pieces about in the same moves to strike in the same way as people have always done.
I've always believed in the adage that the secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
You are sitting on the earth and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth. You are there - fully, personally, genuinely.
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