quotations about suspicion
Suspicions amongst thoughts, are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or at least well guarded: for they cloud the mind; they lose friends; and they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, not in the heart, but in the brain; for they take place in the stoutest natures; as in the example of Henry the Seventh of England. There was not a more suspicious man, nor a more stout. And in such a composition they do small hurt. For commonly they are not admitted, but with examination, whether they be likely or no. But in fearful natures they gain ground too fast. There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and therefore men should remedy suspicion, by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother. What would men have? Do they think, those they employ and deal with, are saints? Do they not think, they will have their own ends, and be truer to themselves, than to them? Therefore there is no better way, to moderate suspicions, than to account upon such suspicions as true, and yet to bridle them as false. For so far a man ought to make use of suspicions, as to provide, as if that should be true, that he suspects, yet it may do him no hurt. Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished, and put into men's heads, by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings. Certainly, the best mean, to clear the way in this same wood of suspicions, is frankly to communicate them with the party, that he suspects; for thereby he shall be sure to know more of the truth of them, than he did before; and withal shall make that party more circumspect, not to give further cause of suspicion. But this would not be done to men of base natures; for they, if they find themselves once suspected, will never be true. The Italian says, Sospetto licentia fede; as if suspicion, did give a passport to faith; but it ought, rather, to kindle it to discharge itself.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Suspicion", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
After midnight
We gonna let it all hang down
After midnight
We gonna chugalug and shout
Gonna stimulate some action
We gonna get some satisfaction
We gonna find out what it is all about
After midnight
ERIC CLAPTON
"After Midnight"
It is hard to blind suspicion with a false color, especially when conceit standeth at the door of an enemy.
AURELIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Suspicion comes out of the unrenewed mind.
JOYCE MEYER
Battlefield of the Mind
Disagreeable suspicions are usually the fruits of a second marriage.
JEAN RACINE
Phedre
As there are dimmed-sighted persons who live in a sort of perpetual twilight, so there are some who, having neither much clearness of head, nor a very elevated tone of morality, are perpetually haunted by suspicion.
RICHARD WHATELY
notes on a Francis Bacon essay, Lord Bacon's Essays
Between two fires we collect our thoughts
Are we all just liars? And our truth is only bought
For it's suspicion that turns it's back on you
Suspicion in the masses down to the very few
You cannot trust your brother
For the fear he's after you
LIEGE LORD
"Suspicion"
Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations
Across the seas in another land
Fists are clenched in every hand
Step across the boundary line
My choice to live is no longer mine
Suspicion drill inside their heads
And the will to live is what we dread
Man's trust has surely died
On the sword's point suspicion glides
LIEGE LORD
"Suspicion"
It is marvelous how ingenious and plausible suspicion is. It has a kind of genius of its own for finding apparent justification. In chance, particularly coincidence, it has a great ally. Every day warns us to beware of circumstantial evidence. It can of all things be one of the most misleading. But suspicion loves it and eagerly seizes on it and puts it to the worst possible use. The suspicious people all understand. Often, when they believe evil of others on account of circumstantial evidence, they are suddenly confronted with the truth that exposes the folly and unkindness of their own thinking. Do they profit by the lesson? Usually, no. The next time their suspicions begin to work they are eager to cooperate and to become its victims.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Being Suspicious", Reactions and Other Essays
I was getting higher; I was trying hard
Oh, drag me down
I need it
Oh, drag me down
Those suspicions are a waste of time'oooohhhhhhh
And I was hoping for a nice surprise
SEBADOH
"Drag Down"
Suspicion is a heavy armor, and with its own weight impedes more than it protects.
LORD BYRON
Werner
Suspicion is never the moral equivalent of certainty, and punishment may be inflicted only on the ground of certainty.
LUIS ANTONIO TAGLE
pastoral letter, June 20, 2017
Banish from thy heart unworthy suspicion, for it polluteth the excellency of the soul.
GIOVANNI ALLARMET
attributed, Day's Collacon
So why do I feel like you're slipping away?
So dark in my heart girl
Too many times torn apart girl
I wanna believe what you're trying to say
Girl I'm trying to listen
Don't want my suspicions to drive you away
Why do I, why do I keep messing with a good thing?
DIERKS BENTLEY
"Why Do I Feel"
Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
ERIC HOFFER
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms
All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
It is as hard for the good to suspect evil as it is for the bad to suspect good.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.
ANN RADCLIFFE
The Mysteries of Udolpho
They that know how to suspect, without exposing or hurting themselves, till honesty comes to be more in fashion, can never suspect too much.
AESOP
"The Cat and the Mice", Aesop's Fables