"To cherish secrets and to restrain emotions are psychic misdemeanours for which nature finally visits us with sickness — that is, when we do these things in private. But when they are done in communion with others they satisfy nature and may even count as useful virtues. It is only restraint practised in and for oneself that is unwholesome. It is as if man had an inalienable right to behold all that is dark, imperfect, stupid and guilty in his fellow-beings — for such of course are the things that we keep private to protect ourselves. It seems to be a sin in the eyes of nature to hide our insufficiency — just as much as to live entirely on our inferior side. There appears to be a conscience in mankind which severely punishes the man who does not somehow and at some time, at whatever cost to his pride, cease to defend and assert himself, and instead confess himself fallible and human. Until he can do this, an impenetrable wall shuts him out from the living experience of feeling himself a man among men. Here we find a key to the great significance of true, unstereotyped confession — a significance known in all the initiation and mystery cults of the ancient world, as is shown by a saying from the Greek mysteries: "Give up what thou hast, and then thou wilt receive.

Keep your own secret, and get out other people's.

Soul, if you want to learn secrets,
your heart must forget about
shame and dignity.
You are God's lover,
yet you worry
what people
are saying.

Secrets tear you apart.

If you must be indiscrete, be discrete in your indiscretion.

My real dissatisfaction is with my dissatisfaction. How dare I be so discontent? How dare I? Or being discontent why cannot I shut up about it?

If thou sustain injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it

Re-examine all that you have been told, dismiss that which insults your soul.

There can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. Nor have I so read or interpreted the Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as part of the retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No; these revelations, unless I greatly error, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable.

When we hold secrets it creates shame, and shame is a great barrier to success. When you carry the shame you do not allow yourself to fulfill your greatest potential, you do not honour the truth of yourself, you do not honour your highest self. When you let go of the secret, only then you live to your greatest potential.

A secret, if it’s kept, can be sweet and comforting, but once it leaks out it can turn on you with a vengeance.

Tis not enough, your counsel still be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;
Men must be taught as if you taught them not;
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust,
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.

'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,
And charitably let the dull be vain:
Your silence there is better than your spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?

There are some secrets so toxic you can’t share. Especially if you love who it is you’d have to share with.

SECRETS ARE POWER. WHEN YOU DIVULGE A SECRET, YOU BARTER THE POTENTIAL power of your hidden knowledge for the fleeting ego boost that comes with its revelation.