
“You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.”
Attributed
Variant: You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
Song lyrics, American Pie (1971), American Pie
Context: So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the Devil's only friend
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan's spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died.
“You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.”
Attributed
Variant: You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
“You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.”
Attributed
“There is more power in the open hand than in the clenched fist.”
Herbert N. Casson cited in: The International Chemical Worker Vol. 13-15 (1953). p. 192
1950s and later
“We hold each other’s lives in our open hands, not in clenched fists.”
Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book II: The Black Cauldron (1965), Chapter 2
“And over mastered by his choler, flies
With a clenched fist at him of Sericane.”
E tratto da la colera, aventosse
Col pugno chiuso al re di Sericana.
Canto XXVII, stanza 63 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 38 (p. 606)
Source: Roots : The Saga of an American Family (1976), Ch. 51.
Press conference, New Delhi (October 19, 1971), quoted in "Indian and Pakistani Armies Confront Each Other Along Borders" by Sydney H. Schanberg, The New York Times (October 20, 1971), page 6C.