Hosea Ballou Quotes

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled.

Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.

Suspicion is like the rain. It falls on the just and on the unjust.

As the trust deficit persists, a deeper rot takes hold: Attitudes and norms begin to change. When no one is trustworthy, it will be only fools who trust. The concept of fairness itself is eroded.

Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows on fair reputations, the corroding dew that destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is primarily the squint of suspicion, and suspicion is established before it is confirmed.

We do not need to become unhappy just because things don't go our way.

Righteousness has never precluded adversity.

Again: there is nothing inherently superior about resistance. All our claims for the righteousness of resistance rest on the rightness of the claim that the resisters are acting in the name of justice. And the justice of the cause does not depend on, and is not enhanced by, the virtue of those who make the assertion. It depends first and last on the truth of a description of a state of affairs that is, truly, unjust and unnecessary.

Life, for Colin, was one long brace against pain and disappointment, and everybody apart from his wife was an enemy until proven otherwise.

Who is that man over there? I don't know him. What is he doing? Is he a conspirator? Have you searched him? Give him till tomorrow to confess, then hang him! -- hang him!

The vertue of a coward is suspition.

Those that trust no one, usually end up trusting the wrong person."-Umma to Midnight

Faith is the virtue of the storm, just as happiness is the virtue of sunshine.

Righteousness exalts a nation. Hate just makes people miserable.

Every unjust man is unjust against his will.

Suspicion is ever strong on the suffering side.

Too long have we been silent under unjust and unholy charges; we cannot expect to have them removed until we disprove them through ourselves.

Fortune's unjust; she ruins oft the brave, and him who should be victor, makes the slave.

He who has trusted where he ought not will surely mistrust where he ought not.

Doubts and jealousies often beget the facts they fear.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.

I don't really have a nemesis, but I have a series of hundreds of small enemies that fuel me. Everyone I meet I assume is out to get me and that fuels my fire on a daily basis.

(An unhappy childhood was not) an unsuitable preparation for my future, in that it demanded a constant wariness, the habit of observation, and the attendance on moods and tempers; the noting of discrepancies between speech and action; a certain reserve of demeanour; and automatic suspicion of sudden favours.

Suspicion is very often a useless pain.