"Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us"
About this Quote
A secret sounds like property, but Hubbard frames it as a transaction: you dont just keep a truth, you outsource it. The line turns confession into a kind of emotional escrow. By calling secrets "things we give", he strips away the romance of privacy and replaces it with something more social and slightly compromising: a secret is leverage handed to another person and politely labeled "trust."
The intent is quietly double-edged. On the surface, its an affirmation of intimacy - we tell someone because we want closeness, witness, relief. Underneath, it suggests the darker mechanics of disclosure: the minute you share, you no longer own the boundary. The other person becomes your custodian, and custodians can mishandle, reinterpret, or weaponize what they hold. Hubbard compresses that risk into the tidy irony of "for us": the secret remains yours in name, but its fate now lives elsewhere.
It also works because it shifts attention from the secret itself to the relationship it creates. Secrets are less about information than obligation. You give someone a role: keeper, accomplice, confessor, co-conspirator. That role can bind two people together, but it can also burden them - you have effectively asked them to carry part of your identity.
Context matters here. Hubbard wrote in an era obsessed with respectability, reputation, and the social consequences of being known too well. In that world, a secret wasnt merely private; it was currency. His sentence reads like a wry warning: every confession is also a handoff, and every handoff creates a new point of failure.
The intent is quietly double-edged. On the surface, its an affirmation of intimacy - we tell someone because we want closeness, witness, relief. Underneath, it suggests the darker mechanics of disclosure: the minute you share, you no longer own the boundary. The other person becomes your custodian, and custodians can mishandle, reinterpret, or weaponize what they hold. Hubbard compresses that risk into the tidy irony of "for us": the secret remains yours in name, but its fate now lives elsewhere.
It also works because it shifts attention from the secret itself to the relationship it creates. Secrets are less about information than obligation. You give someone a role: keeper, accomplice, confessor, co-conspirator. That role can bind two people together, but it can also burden them - you have effectively asked them to carry part of your identity.
Context matters here. Hubbard wrote in an era obsessed with respectability, reputation, and the social consequences of being known too well. In that world, a secret wasnt merely private; it was currency. His sentence reads like a wry warning: every confession is also a handoff, and every handoff creates a new point of failure.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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