Chuck Palahniuk quote: “I would pay snakes to bite her.”

“[T]here's no difference between a white snake and a black snake. They'll both bite.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Lewis
Neil A.
June 29, 1991
Marshall Urges Bush to Pick 'the Best'
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/29/us/marshall-urges-bush-to-pick-the-best.html
2017-04-08
MIsquote: White snake, black snake: They both bite.

“The brigand is as a snake: if you don't annoy him, he doesn't bite you.”

Carmine Crocco (1830–1905) Italian revolutionary

Il brigante è come la serpe, se non la stuzzichi non ti morde.
As quoted in Voci dall'ergastolo, E. Loescher, 1903, by Romolo Ribolla

“If you don’t look for snakes, you cannot complain when one bites you.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lini
(15 October 1993)

“This snake becomes the adversary of Being. There's the snake that bites you in the jungle. Then there's the snake that lives in your enemy. And then there's the snake that lives in your family. And then there's the snake that lives in you. And that snake that's in you, it's a psychological phenomena. It's equivalent to transcendent evil itself, the thing that inhabits every person. It's associated with knowledge of our vulnerability that gives us this constant capacity for evil.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

“I'm not the one who's so far away
When I feel the snake bite enter my veins.
Never did I wanna be here again,
And I don't remember why I came.”

Sully Erna (1968) American musician

“If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide!
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide! That is just the case! The new Territories are the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should be!