An open secret is a concept or idea that is "officially" secret or restricted in knowledge, but is actually widely known; or refers to something which is widely known to be true, but which none of the people most intimately concerned are willing to categorically acknowledge in public.
Famous quotes containing the words open secret, open and/or secret:
“GOETHE, raised o’er joy and strife,
Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life,
And brought Olympian wisdom down
To court and mar, to gown and town,
Stooping, his finger wrote in clay
The open secret of to-day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Is encouragement what the poet needs? Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact, quite a few of them need more discouragement, the most discouragement possible.”
—Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985)
“What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men’s minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)