“He saw a lawyer killing a viper
On a dunghill hard, by his own stable
And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of
Cain and his brother, Abel.”

—  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"The Devils Thoughts" (c. 1834)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He saw a lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard, by his own stable And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of…" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 220
English poet, literary critic and philosopher 1772–1834

Related quotes

Gerard Manley Hopkins photo

“Abel is Cain's brother and breasts they have sucked the same.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Wreck of the Deutschland

"The Wreck of the Deutschland", line 160
Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1918)

Jacques Ellul photo

“Cain is not the city and Abel is not the country; but the relationship between them also illuminates … the relationship between the city and the country. … The city was, from the day of its creation, incapable, because of the motives behind its construction, of any other destiny than that of killing the country, where God put man to enable him to life his life as best he could.”

Jacques Ellul book The Meaning of the City

Source: The Meaning of the City (1951), p. 8

Ashraf Pahlavi photo

“Carter didn't kill my brother with his own hand, but he overthrew him. If Nixon were President, my brother would still be on the throne.”

Ashraf Pahlavi (1919–2016) Iranian royal

In Bitter American Exile, the Shah's Twin Sister, Ashraf, Defends Their Dynasty (1980)

Brigham Young photo

“You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind…. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, 1863, p. 290.
1860s

Anthony Scaramucci photo

“When I said we were brothers from the podium … some brothers are like Cain and Abel, other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I don't know if this is reparable or not, that will be up to the president.”

Anthony Scaramucci (1964) American financier and political figure

Quoted in " Tensions flare between Scaramucci, Priebus amid leak allegations http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/27/tensions-flare-between-scaramucci-priebus-amid-leak-allegations.html", Fox News (July 27, 2017); referring to then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

James Baldwin photo

“No man is a devil in his own mind.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
Aron Ra photo

“Yes, it is absurd [to say that without God, murder is permissible], because even according to your sacred fables Moses murdered an Egyptian and then looked around to make sure no one saw him before trying to conceal the body, and the same goes for the myth of Cain and Abel, where Cain lied about killing his brother. Both of these characters obviously already knew that murder was wrong a long time before the story of the Ten Commandments, and this might be because Hammurabi had already established the code of law many centuries earlier than these myths found their way into the Bible, or it might be that, like most social animals, even superstitious savages understood that you shouldn't kill or maim other members of your own society (unless your religion commands it). One minute, God supposedly says "thou shalt not kill", and the next minute He orders His own people to kill every man and his brother, except of course for Moses's brother who really should have been the only one who was killed in that story. But somehow he was spared and promoted to priest instead; saved by nepotism. Then God told them all to kill all their neighbors, every man, woman and child, including the infants and the unborn. But the fact is that murder is still wrong, regardless of what God has to say about it, and there is still no justification when God allegedly commands His prophets to plunder communities and commit genocide.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, The Damn Commandments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0 (January 7, 2015)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“See the last chapter in Genesis where Cain, the murderer of his brother, went forth with his sons to found the city. The City is still murdering his brother.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

A Testament (1957)

“He put an arm around his brother to help him up. And then, for a moment, he just held on.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Fury / Dark Reunion

Jim Butcher photo

“Harry Dresden: On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Dead Beat (2005), Chapter 1, opening lines

Related topics