Georg Simmel

The first internal relation that is essential to a secret society is the reciprocal confidence of its members.

Discretion is nothing other than the sense of justice with respect to the sphere of the intimate contents of life.

Every relationship between persons causes a picture of each to take form in the mind of the other, and this picture evidently is in reciprocal relationship with that personal relationship.

Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it.

For, to be a stranger is naturally a very positive relation; it is a specific form of interaction.

In the latter case life rests upon a thousand presuppositions which the individual can never trace back to their origins, and verify; but which he must accept upon faith and belief.

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.