Transparency Quotes

“There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.”
― Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“I find it hard to describe what it is like to look fully into eyes that one has known that well--known better than one knows the look of one's own eyes, actually--and then put away, deliberately forgotten. That instantly reasserted intimacy, that resumption of what looks like friendly concern, is like nakedness, like exposure.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“My past conduct was so transparent and so honest that when my enemies spread rumours about me nobody believed them.”
― Amit Kalantri

“People respect those who know how to admit their own mistakes and see their own weaknesses. If you heart is as transparent as crystal, people will respect you.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Here's the bottom line: The secret world of intelligence--at least in the United States of America--represents everything wrong with the government, the industrial era, our financial-economic system, and our ethics.”
― Robert David Steele, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust

“He had shown her all the workings of his soul, mistaking this for love.”
― E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey

“Healing takes place when grievances are given ample and patient space to be acknowledged, when there is transparency and honesty, when everybody is given the chance to be heard, when nobody is excluded, when people can accept the energy of the conflict and use it as a major opportunity for growth.”
― Franco Santoro

“I hid my wound under my clothes. Nobody could see it, including myself, and I completely forgot about it. Then I met someone who, filled with love, held me tight in that point. The pain was devastating, and I hated him, o how much I hated him, the cause of all my suffering. Then I met someone, beautifully dressed, and I loved him so much, holding him tight with all my passion. And he suffered badly, and he hated me, o how much he hated me, the cause of all his pain. So the story went on till I met someone who undressed himself, standing completely naked, with all his horrible wounds. Hence I also undressed, and I saw my horrible wounds, which he could also see. Then...”
― Franco Santoro

“We had better share our bewilderments. By hiding them from each other we should not hide them from ourselves.”
― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

“[Free trade agreements] are trade agreements that don't stick to trade…they colonize environmental labor, and consumer issues of grave concern (in terms of health safety, and livelihoods too) to many, many hundreds of millions of people - and they do that by subordinating consumer, environmental, and labor issues to the imperatives and the supremacy of international commerce.

That is exactly the reverse of how democratic societies have progressed, because over the decades they've progressed by subordinating the profiteering priorities of companies to, say, higher environmental health standards; abolition of child labor; the right of workers to have fair worker standards…and it's this subordination of these three major categories that affect people's lives, labor, environment, the consumer, to the supremacy and domination of trade; where instead of trade getting on its knees and showing that it doesn't harm consumers - it doesn't deprive the important pharmaceuticals because of drug company monopolies, it doesn't damage the air and water and soil and food (environmentally), and it doesn't lacerate the rights of workers - no, it's just the opposite: it's workers and consumers and environments that have to kneel before this giant pedestal of commercial trade and prove that they are not, in a whole variety of ways, impeding international commerce…so this is the road to dictatorial devolution of democratic societies: because these trade agreements have the force of law, they've got enforcement teeth, and they bypass national courts, national regulatory agencies, in ways that really reflect a massive, silent, mega-corporate coup d'etat…that was pulled off in the mid-1990's.”
― Ralph Nader

“It's very, very difficult I think for us to have a transparent debate about secret programs approved by a secret court issuing secret court orders based on secret interpretations of the law.”
― Tom Udall

“You have complete permission to enter my mind, probing all my thoughts, looking for whatever you need to know. There is nothing I intend to hide from you. No matter what you will find, either luminous or dark, you can rest assured that in my heart I deeply love you and I want the best for you, and... I do mean you!”
― Franco Santoro

“Instead of fleeing God scrutiny, David welcomed it. It's like he was saying, "Look God, since I can't hide from you, since you know my very thoughts before I think them, I want you to fully know me. Be in the very core, the essence of my being. If you're going to know me, then know everything about me!”
― Will Davis Jr., 10 Things Jesus Never Said: And Why You Should Stop Believing Them

“Every citizen must be actively aware of, participating in, and overseeing research, and that research should be focused on creating prosperity and peace, not war and poverty or suicidal needs.

Transparency, which engenders truth, is the foundation for all this.”
― Robert David Steele, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust

“I am not alone in the conviction that real, lasting national security can best be obtained through complete transparency of government, business, and other facets of society, and this includes open access to all of the many available types of information.”
― Robert David Steele, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust

“If you expose what it is that we’re doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we’re doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It’s what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It’s to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.

It’s not going to work. I think it’s starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can’t be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we’re certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they’ve been doing.”
― Glenn Greenwald

“Wealth is a relational barrier. It keeps us from having open relationships.”
― Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity: A Comprehensive Guide to What the Bible Says about Financial Stewardship, Generosity, Materialism, Retirement, Financial Planning, Gambling, Debt, and More

“You know you have a transparency problem when citizens of a democracy need to rely on WikiLeaks for details on changes to laws.”
― Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics

“I realized in 1988 that my life as a spy specializing in secrets was not only unproductive, it was in sharp opposition to what we actually need: full access to true information, and consequently, the ability to create Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT).”
― Robert David Steele, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust

“Liberation technology creates wealth, and open-source technology creates wealth. In both instances the 'center of gravity' for dramatic change toward resilience and sustainability is the human brain mass of five billion poor--the one billion rich have failed to 'scale.' The human brain is the one unlimited resource we have on Earth.”
― Robert David Steele, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust

“I will say that again in a different way: the persistent unethical and ignorant emphasis on secrecy and on making decisions for partisan advantage or to pay off campaign contributors and select insiders is not sustainable. We the People have an opportunity to embrace this manifesto of Open-Source Everything and bury 'rule of secrecy.' This is why I am optimistic about the future.”
― Robert David Steele, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust

“Truth’s nakedness is not concerned with whom it strikes - painfully, or with pleasure; responding appropriately to its ingenuous temperament, however, rewards perceptions of unbiased transparency.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“When we are honest about the limitations we are self imposing it becomes necessary to cry out with determination and state you’ve had enough of the mediocrity of stagnation.”
― Heidi Reagan

“Both transparency and trust form the basic component of truth itself. With truth, there is no need to be untrue. If one is truthful, then there is godliness because God is truth. And when godliness is on your side, success is guaranteed.”
― Vishwas Chavan, VishwaSutras: Universal Principles For Living: Inspired by Real-Life Experiences

“When an actor reaches down into his emotional well and pulls up a deeply personal response, the audience can sense something special is going on. They may not know exactly what they're seeing, but they recognize it as authentic.”
― Martin Sheen, Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son

“My life is an open book; at least this photo album".

~R. Alan Woods [2013]”
― R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is the Destination: A Book of Quotes With Commentaries

“Guantánamo Bay's motto: 'Safe, humane, legal, transparent detention.' Four adjectives describing one sick joke.”
― Rodney Ulyate

“I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I’ve grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let’s peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“Only through becoming aware of yourself and your limitations can you be transparent with others.”
― Joanie Connell, Flying Without a Helicopter: How to Prepare Young People for Work and Life

“Supermarkets in Denmark have experimented with adding a second bar code to packages of meat that when scanned at a kiosk in the store brings up on a monitor images of the farm where the meat was raised, as well as detailed information on the particular animal’s genetics, feed, medications, slaughter date, etc. Most of the meat in our supermarkets simply couldn’t withstand that degree of transparency; if the bar code on the typical package of pork chops summoned images of the CAFO it came from, and information on the pig’s diet and drug regimen, who could bring themselves to buy it? Our food system depends on consumers’ not knowing much about it beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner. Cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals