Quotes about suspect

A collection of quotes on the topic of suspect, doing, use, likeness.

Quotes about suspect

H.P. Lovecraft photo
Dante Alighieri photo
Tennessee Williams photo
James Baldwin photo

“If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save.

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: nothing personal

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you — you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Letter to the Secretariat of the Soviet Writers’ Union (12 November 1969) as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970) “Expulsion".

Paul Valéry photo
Alhazen photo
Isaac Newton photo
Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Robert Frost photo
John Locke photo

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”

Dedicatory epistle, as quoted in [Fred R Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations, https://books.google.com/books?id=ck6bXqt5shkC, 2006, Yale University Press, 0-300-10798-6, 468]
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

Mark Twain photo

“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

marginal note in Moncure D. Conway's Sacred Anthology
quoted by Albert Bigelow Paine in Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)

Vladimir Nabokov photo
John Lennon photo

“Part of me suspects that I'm a loser and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

About the song "I'm a Loser"; sometimes misquoted as "Half of me thinks I am a loser, the other half thinks I am God Almighty."
Playboy interview (1980)

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Tedium is the lack of a mithology. To whom has no beliefs, even doubt is impossible, even skepticism has no strength to suspect.”

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O tédio é a falta de uma mitologia. A quem não tem crenças, até a dúvida é impossível, até o cepticismo não tem força para desconfiar.

Elizabeth I of England photo

“Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is there any cause I should alienate myself from being careful over this country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to others' harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth, that I should be suspected to have no regard to the same? How have I governed since my reign? I will be tried by envy itself. I need not to use many words, for my deeds do try me.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Speech to a joint delegation of the House of Lords and the House of Commons (5 November 1566), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (The University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 95.

Frank Zappa photo
Theodor W. Adorno photo

“The concept of positivity in itself, in abstracto, has become part and parcel of the ideology today. … Critique has started to become suspect, regardless of its content.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: Lectures on Negative Dialectics (1965-66), p. 23

Steven M. Greer photo
Taylor Swift photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Neil Gaiman photo
James Tobin photo
Thomas Mann photo
Barack Obama photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

On the subject of torture, in a letter to Louis Alexandre Berthier (11 November 1798), published in Correspendance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol. V, No. 3605, p. 128

Napoleon I of France photo

“A prince should suspect everything.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Barack Obama photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Isaac Newton photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Barack Obama photo
Thomas Mann photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo

“It's not a bad idea to call this Cthulhuism & Yog-Sothothery of mine "The Mythology of Hastur"—although it was really from Machen & Dunsany & others, rather than through the Bierce-Chambers line, that I picked up my gradually developing hash of theogony—or daimonogony. Come to think of it, I guess I sling this stuff more as Chambers does than as Machen & Dunsany do—though I had written a good deal of it before I ever suspected that Chambers ever wrote a weird story!”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to August Derleth (16 May 1931), responding to Derleth's suggestion that he call the interconnected mythology of his stories (what would later be known as the Cthulhu Mythos) "The Mythology of Hastur", quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 505
Non-Fiction, Letters, to August Derleth

James Tobin photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to William H Herndon (10 July 1848)
1840s

George Washington photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Barack Obama photo

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

News Conference By President Obama at Palaiz de la Musique et Des Congres in Strasbourg, France https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/news-conference-president-obama-4042009 (4 April 2009)
2009

Napoleon I of France photo

“The praises of enemies are always to be suspected. A man of honor will not permit himself to be flattered by them, except when they are given after the cessation of hostilities.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Barack Obama photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Mark Twain photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Thucydides photo
Galileo Galilei photo

“I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:
Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Recantation (22 June 1633) as quoted in The Crime of Galileo (1955) by Giorgio de Santillana, p. 312 http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/recantation.html. <!-- also in Galileo's Mistake (2012) by Wade Rowland -->
Other quotes
Context: After an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture — I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:
Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, (which God forbid) any of these my promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands.
I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.

William Wordsworth photo

“O be wiser, thou !
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Lines (1795)
Context: If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself doth look on one,
The least of Nature's works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.

Jerome David Salinger photo

“I'm a kind of a paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955), p. 76

Julius Caesar photo

“I will not … that my wife be so much as suspected.”

Julius Caesar (-100–-44 BC) Roman politician and general

His declaration as to why he had divorced his wife Pompeia, when questioned in the trial against Publius Clodius Pulcher for sacrilege against Bona Dea festivities (from which men were excluded), in entering Caesar's home disguised as a lute-girl apparently with intentions of a seducing Caesar's wife; as reported in Plutarch's Lives of Coriolanus, Caesar, Brutus, and Antonius by Plutarch, as translated by Thomas North, p. 53
Variant translations:
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Indíra Gándhí photo
Eileen Chang photo
Günther von Kluge photo
Rachel Caine photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Elizabeth Strout photo
Lisa Scottoline photo
Rick Riordan photo

“Suspecting and knowing are not the same.”

Source: The Lightning Thief

Janet Evanovich photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Irvine Welsh photo
Steve Martin photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Zadie Smith photo
Henning Mankell photo
Umberto Eco photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
James Baldwin photo

“I don't like people who like me because I'm a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Autobiographical Notes (1952)
Context: I don't like people who like me because I'm a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright. I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater than this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done.
I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Cassandra Clare photo
Jerzy Kosiński photo
Patti Smith photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary.”

Variant: She had been in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love, but rather doing something much more ordinary
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Alison Bechdel photo

“I still found literary criticism to be a suspect activity”

Alison Bechdel (1960) American cartoonist, author

Source: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Julia Quinn photo
Erica Jong photo
John Kennedy Toole photo
John Kennedy Toole photo
Robin McKinley photo
Augusten Burroughs photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo

“We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: Volume 1

José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Sue Monk Kidd photo
Stephen Fry photo