Quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat, 'malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit'.
Illud venenum quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile: hoc habentibus pessimum est.
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXI: On benefits, Line 22
Quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat, 'malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit'. Illud venenum quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile: hoc habentibus pessimum est.
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Variant: Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Source: Wishful Drinking
“Poison cures in certain contingencies, and in those cases poison is not an evil thing.”
Le venin guerit en quelque rencontre, et, ce cas-là, le venin n'est pas mauvais.
Aristippe, ou De la cour (1658), Discours VI.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 139.
“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and then waiting around for the rat to die.”
Traveling Mercies
Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
“Better be poisoned in one's own blood then to be poisoned in one's principle.”
As quoted by Governor Barnett's Declaration to the Profile of Mississippi Broadcast via TV and Radio. Sep. 13, 1962 http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/olemiss/controversy/doc2.html without citation and in An unknown legend of India: A bharat ratna By Gaurav Pundeer https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3736889569
Famous speeches
Lyrical Intermezzo, 57; in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 73
“… it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart.”
Source: The Wise Man's Fear
