“Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it.”

Source: Macbeth

Last update June 22, 2026. History

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William Shakespeare699

English playwright and poet 1564–1616

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“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

“The bee and the serpent often sip from the selfsame flower.”

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L'ape e la serpe spesso
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“This mortal life is like a meadow where the serpent lies among the flowers and grass, and if anything we see there pleases our eyes, the result is to enlime our souls more deeply.”

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Questa vita terrena è quasi un prato,
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et s'alcuna sua vista agli occhi piace,
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Canzone 99, st. 2
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“The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

“The flowers and my love
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“Oh, the way words lie down under decades, then the Union of Restless Diggers out of sheer insomnia pulls them up: daggers for the young but to us they look like flowers of nostalgia that grew in our mother’s foreign garden.”

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"Listening"
Context: What is this crap, Mother, this life is short and terrible. What is this metaphysical shit, what is this disease you intelligentsia are always talking about.
First we said: Intelligentsia! Us? Oh, the way words lie down under decades, then the Union of Restless Diggers out of sheer insomnia pulls them up: daggers for the young but to us they look like flowers of nostalgia that grew in our mother’s foreign garden. What did my mother say? Darling, you should have come to Town Hall last night, the whole intelligentsia was there. My uncle, strictly: the intelligentsia will never permit it.!