The Firm 1993 - Demosthenes - William Shakespeare - Charles Dickens - Mahatma Gandhi - Thomas Paine - Petrarch - Eric Hoffer - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - Syrus - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Le Monde - Judging Jewell TV - Adam Curtis TV -
I get paid to be suspicious when I’ve got nothing to be suspicious about. The Firm 1993 starring Tom Cruise & Jeanne Tripplehorn & Gene Hackman & Ed Harris & Holly Hunter & Hal Holbrook & David Strathairn et al, director Sydney Pollack, security guy to lawyers
There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies against despots – suspicion. Demosthenes
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer. William Shakespeare, III Henry VI V vi 11
My heart suspects more than mine eye can see. William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus II iii 213, Quintus to Martius
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes that what he feared is chanced. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV I i 84-87, Northumberland to Morton
It was a maxim with Foxey – our reverend father, gentlemen, – ‘Always suspect everybody.’ Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted. Mahatma Gandhi
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. Thomas Paine
Suspicion is the cancer of friendship. Petrarch
Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of scepticism. 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, 1955
Suspicion follows close on mistrust. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise
The losing side is full of suspicion. Syrus
A hundred suspicions don’t make a proof. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
Will we go to war over suspicions? Le Monde, re Colin Powell’s address to United Nations
‘Wednesday 31st July 1996: Special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation are presently executing a federal search warrant.’ Judging Jewell ***** rozzers’ announcement, ESPN short 2014
‘Richard Jewell’s mother’s apartment was searched and seized live on national television.’ ibid. commentator
‘Was there one bomb? Was there many?’ ibid.
‘Richard Jewell saved my life.’ ibid.
‘They talked about a security guard … seemed like the real hero in all this.’ ibid.
‘Guard’s alertness in park makes him an unexpected hero.’ ibid. newspaper article
‘The mood is one of suspicion.’ ibid.
‘And then it got ugly.’ ibid.
Jewell was unable to find employment in law enforcement for over a year. In 1997 he accepted a position with the police department in Luthersville, Georgia, population 793. He was paid $8 an hour. ibid.
When the internet was created those patterns of suspicion would move into the data and multiply endlessly across the system … Suspicion and distrust crept back into what was going to be the new system of power. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head I: Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain, BBC 2021
His [Tupac’s] message was simple: that suspicion was just another form of control. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head VI Are We a Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer? *****