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Spies like to stay in the shadows. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen to what they have to say. With that in mind, check out the top 43 spy quotes.
Table of Contents
#43 – 40. Spy Quotes
43. Breaking a cardinal rule of spy craft, I actually let it be known that I wanted to work for the CIA. – James Luceno
42. Spies are, by nature and necessity, pathological liars who strive to make their endgames justify their meanness. – Stewart Stafford.
41. The Spy Act prohibits keystroke logging, hijacking, and phishing. – Cliff Stearns
40. Spies are the ears and eyes of Princes. – George Herbert.
#39 – 30. Spy Quotes
39. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now. – Edward Snowden
38. I’m almost incapable of lying. I’d be a terrible spy. – Gary Oldman
37. In my head, I think I’d make a perfect spy, but in reality, I don’t think I’d fare very well. – Matthew Rhys
36. Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity. – Sun Tzu.
35. We can do more for the people if they are not so aware of what we are trying to do. – Volker G. Fremuth
34. Friends don’t spy; true friendship is about privacy, too. – Stephen King
33. There are Russian spies here now. And if we’re lucky, they’ll steal some of our secrets and they’ll be two years behind. – Mort Sahl.
32. Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury. – Joseph Conrad.
31. I’ve been a spy for almost all of my adult life – I don’t like being in the spotlight. – Edward Snowden
30. You can’t be a real spy and have everybody in the world know who you are and what your drink is. That’s just hysterically funny. – Roger Moore
#29 – 20. Spy Quotes
29. Writing about magic is harder than writing about spies because you’re dealing with something that doesn’t really exist. – Anthony Horowitz.
28. I think I would make a good spy. I can sort of be a chameleon. People don’t notice me very easily. I never get recognized. – Dana Delany
27. There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me’. – Philip K. Dick.
26. A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it. – John le Carré.
25. From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it’s a big bureaucratic place. Think ‘post office with spies. – Barry Eisler
24. I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time. – David Byrn.
23. Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army’s ability to move. – Sun Tzu.
22. All seems infected that th’ infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. – Alexander Pope
21. I am on Facebook, but mainly as a way to spy on my children. – Salman Rushdi.
20. The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. – Helen Mirren.
#19 – 10. Spy Quotes
19. I’ve always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem. – Benedict Cumberbatch.
18. If I was a spy, I would have a watch that would cloak me in invisibility. – Kyle.
17. Our mobile phones have become the greatest spy on the planet. – John McAfee.
16. Writing about magic is harder than writing about spies because you’re dealing with something that doesn’t really exist. – Anthony Horowitz.
15. Good neighbors always spy on you to make sure you are doing well. – Pawan Mishra
14. Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies. – Jane Austen.
13. That’s the thing about spies. Most of the secrets we keep are from each other. – Ally Carter
12. For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed. – John le Carré.
11. For an old spy and codebreaker like myself, nothing in the world happens by coincidence. – Malcolm Nance
10. There aren’t enough secrets to go round anymore. Some spies are having to invent secrets in order to earn a living. – Shelagh Delaney.
#9 – 1. Spy Quotes
9. I’m a spy, Cam. I was born to do this- to be this. It’s in my blood. – Ally Carter
8. The life of spies is to know, not bee known. – George Herbert
7. Spies have the same kinds of needs and desires that everybody does, which is funny. The best kind of comedy derives from that kind of truth. – Matt Nix
6. The report also said I show great potential as an agent. I figure they must be right, since I successfully broke into a safe to find that out. – Amy McAuley.
5. He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession. – Ian Fleming.
4. It’s a very dangerous and lonely thing, I imagine, to be a spy: to have friendships that are deceptions, that are not honest.- Mark Rylance.
3. A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark. – Marcus Aurelius.
2. Waiting. Like it or not, it’s a skill all spies have to master eventually. – Ally Carter
1. Setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom. – Tommy Douglas.
Ideas for the top 43 spy quotes come from the following sources.[1]kidadl – 130 Spy Quote For Budding Special Agents[2]EveryDayPower – Spy Quote for Being Undercover and Sneaky