About Georg Simmel: Georg Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.
Secrecy is thus, so to speak, a transition stadium between being and not-being.
The earliest phase of social formations found in historical as well as in contemporary social structures is this: a relatively small circle firmly closed against neighboring, strange, or in some way antagonistic circles.
The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to all genuine individuality, because relationships and reactions result from it which cannot be exhausted with logical operations.
The metropolis has always been the seat of the money economy.
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.
The first internal relation that is essential to a secret society is the reciprocal confidence of its members.
For the metropolis presents the peculiar conditions which are revealed to us as the opportunities and the stimuli for the development of both these ways of allocating roles to men.
Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession.
For, to be a stranger is naturally a very positive relation; it is a specific form of interaction.
