Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

Tampering with humanity is pretty scary.

Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.

In some causes silence is dangerous.

The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

Your secret is your prisoner; once you reveal it, you become its slave.

The most dangerous people are the ignorant.

The definition of a stupid thing is something that if you do everything right, you still get hurt. Fire-eating and love are stupid things.

What you don't know can hurt you.

It may not have been fair, but it changed history.

Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated?

Once exposed, a secret loses all its power.

Most leaks from large bureaucracies are “good” leaks: no danger to national security, no harm to innocent people, information the public ought to know.

Every technology that can improve the human condition could harm the human condition. Someone evil could program a robot to hurt people.

... obsessions are always dangerous.

It's immoral to ask people to risk their life.

Ignorance might be bliss, but it's irresponsible and dangerous too.

With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

One who rushes madly after inordinate desire, runs the risk of encountering destruction and death.

But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .

...all them things I don't know could get you killed if I come to know them

Sharing revelations is easier when it doesn't matter.

Some things are more important than safety.

When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.