I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilisation. It’s a lout’s game. Rebecca West
When you grow suspicious of a person and begin a system of espionage upon him, your punishment will be that you will find your suspicions true. Elbert G Hubbard
Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust. Aldrich Ames
Espionage has never been respectable. I don’t think the films of James Bond and romantic views of spies have done anything to alter the public revulsion to what espionage really is. That stench is there. Aldrich Ames
Sex and espionage certainly go together – that’s an old tradition. Markus Wolf
It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus double agents are recruited and used. Sun Tzu
An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product. Aldrich Ames