Suspicion

Suspicion is a cognition of mistrust in which a person doubts the honesty of another person or believes another person to be guilty of some type of wrongdoing or crime, but without sure proof. Suspicion can also be aroused in response to objects that negetively differ from an expected idea.

Sourced

• Quoth Sidrophel, If you suppose,
  Sir Knight, that I am one of those,
  I might suspect, and take th' alarm,
  Your bus'ness is but to inform;
  But if it be, 'tis ne'er the near,
  You have a wrong sow by the ear.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto III, line 575.

• All seems infected that the infected spy,
  As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 568.

• All is not well;
  I doubt some foul play.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 2, line 255.

• Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
  The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 6, line 11.

• Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
  Yet if my name were liable to fear,
  I do not know the man I should avoid
  So soon as that spare Cassius.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act I, scene 2, line 198.

• A person does not incur suspicion unless he has done the thing; and if he has not done it wholly he has done it partly; and if he has not done it partly, he has a mind to do it; and if he has not had a mind to do it, he has seen others doing it and enjoyed
  • Rabbi Reuben ben Estrobile, Talmud, tractate Mo'ed Katan 18b.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 771-72.

• Multorum te etiam oculi et aures non sentientem, sicuti adhuc fecerunt, speculabuntur atque custodient.
  • Without your knowledge, the eyes and ears of many will see and watch you, as they have done already.
  • Cicero, Orationes In Catilinam, I, 2.

• Cautus enim metuit foveam lupus, accipiterque
  Suspectos laqueos, et opertum milvius hamum.
  • The wolf dreads the pitfall, the hawk suspects the snare, and the kite the covered hook.
  • Horace, Epistles, I. 16. 50.

• Argwohnen folgt auf Misstrauen.
  • Suspicion follows close on mistrust.
  • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise, V. 8.

• Que diable alloit-il faire dans cette galère?
  • What the devil was he doing in this galley?
  • Molière, Fourberies de Scapin, Act II, 11. Cyrano de Bergerac, Pédant Joué, Act II, scene 4.

• Julius Cæsar divorced his wife Pompeia, but declared at the trial that he knew nothing of what was alleged against her and Clodius. When asked why, in that case, he had divorced her, he replied: "Because I would have the chastity of my wife clear even of suspicion."
  • Plutarch, Life of Julius Cæsar. Same in Suetonius, Life of Cæsar.

• As to Cæsar, when he was called upon, he gave no testimony against Clodius, nor did he affirm that he was certain of any injury done to his bed. He only said, "He had divorced Pompeia because the wife of Cæsar ought not only to be clear of such a crime, but of the very suspicion of it."
  • Plutarch, Life of Cicero.

• Les soupçons importuns
  Sont d'un second hymen les fruits les plus communs.
  • Disagreeable suspicions are usually the fruits of a second marriage.
  • Jean Racine, Phèdre, II. 5.

• Ad tristem partem strenua est suspicio.
  • The losing side is full of suspicion.
  • Syrus, Maxims.

• Omnes quibus res sunt minus secundæ magis sunt, nescio quomodo,
  Suspiciosi; ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis;
  Propter suam impotentiam se credunt negligi.
  • All persons as they become less prosperous, are the more suspicious. They take everything as an affront; and from their conscious weakness, presume that they are neglected.
  • Terence, Adelphi, IV. 3. 14.