Top 35 Espionage Quotes

I was asked by a journalist to sum up the story in a minute, and I was like, ‘No.’ It goes from Trump to Brexit to Russian espionage to military operations in Afghanistan to hacking the president of Nigeria. Where do you even begin?

Maha Kumbh’ blends elements from Hindu mythology with the international espionage thriller. Nothing like it has ever been attempted on Indian television.

Trudeau claims he’s wary about Chinese espionage, but also says there’s nothing wrong with Chinese state-owned enterprises buying up as much of Canada’s resource sector as it likes.

I would love to do espionage like ‘The Thomas Crown Affair,’ that kind of thing. And I’ve always had a fascination with madams. It’s interesting to me what that institution is like, how those women are.

We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage.

That world of spies and espionage, there’s a coldness to it. That’s what makes those worlds fascinating – and what makes le Carre’s work so interesting.

When I first read Helen Weinzweig’s ‘Basic Black with Pearls’ several years ago, I emerged in the sort of daze that happens when a book seems to ferret out your most secret thoughts and hopes. Since then, I’ve described the book to others as an ‘interior feminist espionage novel.’

To be clear, we do not open investigations based on race, or ethnicity, or national origin. But when we open investigations into economic espionage, time and time again, they keep leading back to China.

Who would have thought that in the 1950s, Burbank was a hotbed of international espionage?

Espionage and counterespionage go together like horse and carriage.

If we are going to conduct espionage in the future, we are going to have to make some changes in the relationship between the intelligence community and the public it serves.

I’ve always had a great affection for espionage stories. I like weaving them, and I like thrillers.

In terms of the espionage, this is something I have talked to President Obama about. We don’t want it to mar the relationship between Mexico and the United States. But it is unacceptable for a country to practice such espionage, especially if there is a good relationship with the other country.

My name is E. Howard Hunt. I’m currently retired from more than 22 years in the profession of espionage.

Let’s say a Soviet exchange student back in the ’70s would go back and tell the KGB about people and places and things that he’d seen and done and been involved with. This is not really espionage; there’s no betrayal of trust.

I grew up reading the classic novels of Cold War espionage, and I studied Russian history and Soviet foreign policy.

Mainly, when I go see a show, unfortunately it’s more industrial espionage than it is going to actually enjoy a show.

Look realistically at espionage thrillers again. They’re not only alive, readers are excited about them.

The Espionage Act is very broadly written. It doesn’t make distinguish – or it doesn’t make distinctions between categories of people that can receive and publish information and under what circumstances.

The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.

I don’t know if the European Union contributes a great deal to espionage. At the union level, they talk about commerce and privacy. But to keep citizens safe, that remains a responsibility back in national capitals.

The Iraqi regime was supporting terrorist cells all over the world. We had to expel three Iraqi diplomats from the Philippines because of evidence that they were either in touch with Abu Sayyaf or doing their own espionage.

Cyber attacks are not what makes the cool war ‘cool.’ As a strategic matter, they do not differ fundamentally from older tools of espionage and sabotage.

Out of every 10 scripts I get sent, seven are fairly generic about an American guy who gets the girl and is involved in underground espionage activity.

I’m sort of fascinated by the whole espionage crime thing.

This is the wonderful thing about espionage, nothing exists any more.

What was once a comparatively minor threat – people hacking for fun or for bragging rights – has turned into full-blown economic espionage and extremely lucrative cyber crime.

In most espionage novels, the characters risk their lives trying to save somebody or while protecting a nation from some threat. In ‘The Travelers,’ that’s not what’s going on. I used espionage as a device to heighten the characters’ personal dramas.

Organizations, whether they are nonprofits or enterprise, need to be aware that nation-states are coming after them for political espionage, economic espionage, or destructive attacks.

Because there are little to no consequences for conducting cyberattacks, criminals and nation-states are becoming bolder in their threats and behavior. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are increasingly hacking into U.S. companies and government networks for espionage purposes or financial gain.

When you think of the Cold War, there are various places where you imagine espionage. Espionage crossroads of the Cold War bring you to the backstreets of Berlin, or Vienna.

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.

Xi agreed to the American definition of legitimate espionage. In other words, you don’t use the power of the state to steal secrets for profit.

Once you’ve lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It’s a mentality, a double standard of existence.

In many cases, Obama’s exercise of authoritarian power is criminal. His executive branch is responsible for violations of the Arms Export Control Act in shipping weapons to Syria, the Espionage Act in Libya, and IRS law with regard to the targeting of conservative groups.