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Quotations about suspicion
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
Moses, Man of the Mountain [Moses] (1939)
(Source)
GLOUCESTER: Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part III, Act 5, sc. 6, l. 11 (1590)
Suspicion begets suspicion.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 928 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
There are two kinds of fools: those who suspect nothing and those who suspect everything.
Charles-Joseph Lamoral, Prince de Ligne (1735-1814) Belgian military leader, noble, writer [Karl Fürst von Ligne, Charles-Joseph de Ligne]
Mes écarts, ou, ma tête en liberté
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
Common Sense, “Of the Present Ability of America” (1776)
The seed had sprouted into that most wonderful and horrible of fruits: doubt, which, like the strawberry, has a succulent taste, but has also a tendency to spread and spread, until it dominates whatever garden it has taken root in.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
The Phoenix Guards (1991)
Suspicion often creates what it suspects.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
“Screwtape Proposes a Toast”
A man prone to suspect evil is most looking for in his neighbor what he sees in himself.
Julius Hare (1795-1855) English cleric, theologian
Guesses at Truth: First Series (1827) [with A. W. Hare]
A wise Man will keep his Suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Of Caution and Suspicion,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
(Source)
Every boddy in this world wants watching, but none more than ourselves.
[Everybody in this world wants watching, but none more than ourselves.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Fus Impressions” (1874)
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Any man who attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the governed among you?
Any manifest error on the part of an enemy should make us suspect some stratagem.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 48 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
My wife should be as much free from suspicion of a crime as she is from a crime itself.
[Meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere.]
Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) Roman general and statesman [Gaius Julius Caesar]
In Suetonius, Life of Caesar
Popularly, "Caesar’s wife must be above reproach" or "beyond reproach."
Caesar was called to be a witness against Clodius, who was charge with having defiled sacred rites and having an affair with Pompeia, Caesar's wife. Caesar said he had investigated and found out nothing to prove the Pompeia's fidelity. When asked why, then, he had divorced her, he gave this answer.
Alt. trans.: "I judge it necessary for my kin to be as free from suspicion as from the charge of wrongdoing."
Alt. trans.: "I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected." [in Plutarch, “Caesar,” Parallel Lives [tr. Dryden (1693)]].
SELF-RESPECT: The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Book of Burlesques, ch. 11 (1920)
