Mark Fisher Quotes

An ally has to be watched just like an enemy

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

We knew we were talking about spies. I knew he knew I knew. I was digging my own grave.

Today's difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.

Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.

People always kill Caesar. Don't trust anyone.

Betrayal, in one form or another, is at the very heart of the world of intelligence.

I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.

I don't trust or love anyone. Because people are so creepy. Creepy creepy creeps. Creeping around. Creeping here and creeping there. Creeping everywhere.

However I dress it up, I was a spy and I am not proud of it.

I handed over names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union.

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

For somehow this disease inheres in tyranny, never to trust one's friends.

I have been a conspirator for so long that I mistrust all around me.

I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

Trust not a new friend or an old enemy.

It's impossible for somebody to defect from the United States. Edward Lee Howard is not a defector. He's a traitor.

Fear begets suspicion and distrust and evil imaginings of all sorts, till each government feels it would be criminal … of its own country not to take every precaution [armament], while every Government regards every precaution of every other government as evidence of hostile intent.

Treat your friends as if they were going to be your enemies one day.

I would rather betray others, than have others betray me

It's a very dangerous and lonely thing, I imagine, to be a spy: to have friendships that are deceptions, that are not honest.

Walls have ears. Doors have eyes. Trees have voices. Beasts tell lies. Beware the rain. Beware the snow. Beware the man You think you know. -Songs of Sapphique

I learned not to trust people; I learned not to believe what they say but to watch what they do; I learned to suspect that anyone and everyone is capable of 'living a lie'. I came to believe that other people - even when you think you know them well - are ultimately unknowable.

For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.