Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear. [ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream ]

So plain is the distinction of our words,
That many have supposed it a spirit
That answers. [ Webster ]

Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil. [ Byron ]

Danger is the very basis of superstition. It produces a searching after help supernaturally when human means are no longer supposed to be available. [ B. R. Haydon ]

I have never believed that friendship supposed the obligation of hating those whom your friends did not love, and I believe rather it obliges me to love those whom they love. [ Morellet ]

Various and very absurd notions prevailed among the ancients in regard to the dew; by some it was supposed to descend from the stars, and to be possessed of wonderful virtues. [ Barnard ]

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are out of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire. [ Sir J. Reynolds ]

She was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at the age when, if ever angels be for God's good purpose enthroned in mortal form, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers. [ Dickens ]

All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions. [ Thomas Paine ]

None but those who have loved can be supposed to understand the oratory of the eye, the mute eloquence of a look, or the conversational powers of the face. Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances. [ Bovee ]

We lose in depth of expression when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with human beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed; and the epithet suits well with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, with all her beauty, to want a certain humanity. Her large eyes look at you with a royal indifference. [ Leigh Hunt ]

Chance never writ a legible book; chance never built a fair house; chance never drew a neat picture; it never did any of these things, nor ever will; nor can it be without absurdity supposed able to do them; which yet are works very gross and rude, very easy and feasible, as it were, in comparison to the production of a flower or a tree. [ Barrow ]

Columbus died in utter ignorance of the true nature of his discovery. He supposed he had found India, but never knew how strangely God had used him. So God piloted the fleet. The great discoverer, with all his heroic virtues, did not know whither he went. He sailed for the back door of Asia, and landed at the front door of America, and knew it not. He never settled the continent. Thus far and no farther, said the Lord. His providence was over all. [ David James Burrell ]