quotations about privacy
The privacy that older generations once enjoyed is now the stuff of nostalgia. Younger people have a different understanding of what it entails. Those who grew up being able to stay in constant touch with their friends have come of age and are reshaping the world accordingly. We live in times when a personal relationship can be jettisoned because a digital message goes unanswered for a few minutes too long, where couples announce their decisions to divorce on Instagram.
EDITOR
The Nation, May 28, 2016
There is a palpable sense that the dynamic of privacy has changed from one in which you are private by default, to one in which you are public by default, and private by effort.
LEE RAINIE
"Making Information Pay: Is Privacy Becoming a Commodity?", Publishers Weekly, May 27, 2016
All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.
KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD
Modes and Morals
Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order ... and the like.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
Points of Rebellion
He has not spent his life badly who has passed it from his birth to his burial in privacy.
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Private life favoreth happiness.
SEE-MA-KOANG
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is a sacred realm of privacy for every man and woman where he makes his choices and decisions--a realm of his own essential rights and liberties into which the law, generally speaking, must not intrude.
GEOFFREY FISHER
Look Magazine, March 17, 1959
There is a self-imposed privacy less easily invaded than convent walls.
HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN
The Optimist: A Series of Essays
To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.
ANTHONY BURGESS
Homage to Qwert Yuiop: Essays
Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly urbane culture. Out of the cave, the tribal tepee, the pueblo, the community fortress, man emerged to build himself a house of his own with a shelter in it for himself and his diversions. Every age has seen it so. The poor might have to huddle together in cities for need's sake, and the frontiersman cling to his neighbors for the sake of protection. But in each civilization, as it advanced, those who could afford it chose the luxury of a withdrawing-place.
PHYLLIS MCGINLEY
"A Lost Privilege", The Province of the Heart
The empowerment given ordinary citizens by the social media is testing the limits of just how much personal privacy can be chipped away. The digital revolution is fuelling a competition that not long ago was the exclusive territory of the professional news media. And when it comes to being the first to report a story, "healthy competition" can turn nasty in a hurry.
EDITOR
The Nation, May 28, 2016
Intimacy is an important part of a happy relationship, but so is a healthy respect for each other's privacy.
LESLIE BECKER-PHELPS
"How Much Privacy Is Good for a Relationship?", WebMD, June 1, 2016
Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
Private interests must yield to public good.
EDMUND GETTY
The Last King of Ulster