David Hume Quotes

If you tell Congress everything about the world situation, they get hysterical. If you tell them nothing, they go fishing.

Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.

Some things are not best done in public even though the public is asking for a confrontation.

The French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It's not that they feel that what you don't know won't hurt you; they feel that what you don't know won't hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking.

It is important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to friendship that we are not.

Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.

While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive.

It is often wise to reveal that which cannot be concealed for long.

Discretion is the polite word for hypocrisy.

In politics you learn to always smile.

You have to steer a course between not appalling people, but at the same time not misleading them.

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.

There are two great rules of life: never tell everything at once.

Politeness is only one half good manners and the other half good lying.

I always mean what I say, but I don't always say what I'm thinking.

Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.

Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious.

In Washington the politicians lie on the record and tell the truth off the record. In the Middle East, it’s the opposite. They lie off the record, and tell the truth on the record.

It’s better to be quotable than to be honest.

A pupil of diplomacy has to learn three things: to speak French, to speak nothing, and to speak falsehood.

What's public is propaganda, what's secret is serious.

Everyone in politics turns to the press, if only to manipulate it or deflect it.

Communicate no other intelligence to Congress at large than what may be necessary to promote the common weal, not to gratify the curiosity of individuals.

A man had rather a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish to be told.

As much as possible, you simply don't give out information to the public, that is the first principle.