Suspect Quotes
More Suspect Quotes
The military mind tends to be conservative, realistic and historical. The civilian mind tends to be liberal, idealistic and Utopian. Journalists, obviously, are civilians, and they tend to distrust, and to suspect, the military’s motives.
— Mark Riebling, "Rumsfeld's New Spy Unit," Broadcast on National Public Radio (October 31, 2002). Full transcript online
Tedium is the lack of a mithology. To whom has no beliefs, even doubt is impossible, even skepticism has no strength to suspect.
fernando pessoa— 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.
— Ibid.
suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
john updike— A Month of Sundays (1975)
I suspect that the vast majority of people, not knowing in advance whether they will either end up in a permanently vegetative state or be diagnosed with cancer, would prefer that any resources that would be spent on PVS care be reallocated to cancer research--or some similar enterprise that has the potential to help human beings who might actually recover.
jacob m. appel— "Rational Rationing vs. Irrational Rationing", The Huffington Post (2010-06-23)
In the wake of the Cultural Revolution and now of the recession I observe a mounting pressure to co-operate and to promote "teamwork". For its anti-individualistic streak, such a drive is of course highly suspect; some people may not be so sensitive to it, but having seen the Hitlerjugend in action suffices for the rest of your life to be very wary of "team spirit". Very.
edsger w. dijkstra— Dijkstra (1994) "The strengths of the academic enterprise" (EWD 1175)
I suspect this picture is pretty close to what fans were hoping for, and for their sake, I'm glad it's markedly better than the two that preceded it. But Revenge of the Sith is still crap.
stephanie zacharek— Review of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
And to some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.
george henry lewes— George Henry Lewes, The Spanish Drama (1846), Chapter III.
Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect, even your mother won't detect it, no your father won't know. they think that I've got no respect but everything means less than zero.
elvis costello— Less Than Zero
The pleasures of love are for those who are hopelessly addicted to another living creature. The reasons for such addiction are so many that I suspect they are never the same in any two cases. It includes passion but does not survive by passion; it has its whiffs of the agreeable vertigo of young love, but it is stable more often than dizzy; it is a growing, changing thing, and it is tactful enough to give the addicted parties occasional rests from strong and exhausting feeling of any kind.
Robertson Davies— The Pleasures of Love (1961)
In the popular political imagination we're familiar with the neocons as conniving militarists, masters of intrigue and cabals, graspers for the oil supplies of the world, and all the rest. But here we have them in what I suspect is the truest light: as college kid rubes who head out for a weekend in Vegas, get scammed out of their money by a two-bit hustler on the first night and then get played for fools by a couple hookers who leave them naked and handcuffed to their hotel beds.
joshua micah marshall— Talking Points Memo (2004-05-04) [1]
If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee, when, peradventure, thou wert accused by the ass...
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, scene iii.
Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.
edward abbey— "Water", p. 113; this is often quoted as simply: Without courage, all other virtues are useless.
Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter...
james jeans— p. 137, 1937 ed.
Never before, I suspect, have so many people been so rich to so little purpose.
mark kingwell— Chapter 5, The World We Want, p. 209
There are strong reasons to suspect that had Kluge not committed suicide he would have been arrested anyway.
günther von kluge— Adolf Hitler to Alfred Jodl
"...I suspect that pain means little to you as your life--but both your life and your pain are very important to me."
matthew stover— (XII.2) Del Rey, p. 412
I haven't decided if he deserved to eat bread made out of sticks or live in a rancid puddle, probably because I haven't made up my mind whether anyone deserves such treatment, though I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Conventions is the day a person gives up on the human race.
sarah vowell— p. 81 On Samuel Mudd
Our ills are worse than at their ease These blameless happy souls suspect, They only study the disease, Alas, who live not to detect.
arthur hugh clough— In the Depths, st. 3.
Lest men suspect your tale untrue, Keep probability in view.
john gay— Fable, The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody.
I would have felt better if she had followed the Florida law. I suspect most people faced with the same situation would have done what she did.
judith krug— Referring to Kathleen Hensman, a Delray Beach, Florida public librarian informing police about 9/11 suspects having used computers in the library where she works"A Nation Challenged: Questions of Confidentiality; Competing Principles Leave Some Professionals Debating Responsibility to Government" by David E. Rosenbaum, The New York Times (November 23, 2001)
I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.
aldo leopold— “November: Axe-in-Hand”, p. 68
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— 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"
Unsurprisingly, Gertrude Stein was not a fan of the question mark. Are you beginning to suspect as I am that there was something wrong at home?
Gertrude Stein— Lynne Truss, in Eats, Shoots and Leaves (2003)
Since all the riches of this world May be gifts from the devil and earthly kings, I should suspect that I worshipped the devil If I thanked my God for worldly things.
william blake— William Blake, Riches. (Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations)
He [Jesus] speaks in parables, and though we have approached these parables reverentially all these many years and have heard them expounded as grave and reverent vehicles of holy truth, I suspect that many if not all of them were originally not grave at all but were antic, comic, often more than just a little shocking.
— Frederick Buechner, in Drama Team Handbook, p.85
And have you been able, Flaccus, to see the slender Thais? Then, Flaccus, I suspect you can see what is invisible.
— Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XI, Epigram 101.
When the Court see reason to suspect that justice has not been done to any particular defendant, they will in their discretion direct a further enquiry into the merits of the cause.
— The King v. Holt (1793), 5 T. R. 444.
I confess that when I am sought to be driven to a conclusion which appears to me unreasonable and unjust, I at once suspect the validity of the premises, even if I can detect no flaw in the reasoning from them.
— Lindley, L.J., In re Holford (1894), L. R. 3 Ch. 45.
Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter...
james jeans— James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe (1930, 1937)
