If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

The reason a man talks is to hide his thoughts.

A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions.

How could you disguise your own thoughts so even you didn't know what you were thinking?

If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked.

Whenever the truth threatens, he hides behind a thought.

A man does not want to believe that he is proud, or cowardly, or lazy, or hotheaded; he wants to believe that he is the right sort; and although his conscience reproaches him for his faults, he prefers to suppress the feeling he has of them, than to have the unpleasantness of knowing about them.

Some men think because they're afraid to do.

Maybe anything's right, he mumbled. Yes, if the world as men had made it was right, then anything else was right, any act a man took to satisfy himself, murder, theft, torture.He straightened with a start. What was happening to him? ... He was going to do something, but what? Yes, he was afraid of himself, afraid of doing some nameless thing.

Suspicion often creates what it suspects.

viz., that man should not rashly engage in speculation with false conceptions, and when he is in doubt about anything, or unable to find a proof for the object of his inquiry, he must not at once abandon, reject and deny it; he must modestly keep back,

Once a story you’ve regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories.

men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

When people are suspicious with you, you start being suspicious with them.