“[T]here's no difference between a white snake and a black snake. They'll both bite.”
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.
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Thurgood Marshall11
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court 1908–1993Related quotes
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
“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
“Everyone looks on me like a black snake.”
Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger
Babington Letter (1870)
“If you don’t look for snakes, you cannot complain when one bites you.”
Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer
Lini
(15 October 1993)
“For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake”
Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children
Source: Midnight's Children
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!
Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer
twitter post, Sangakkara referring to a recent incident when Shane Warne plunged headfirst into a box filled with snakes on an episode of Network Ten show "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!". When Shane lowered his head into the box, an aggressive anaconda bit him, quoted on Sportskeeda, "Kumar Sangakkara trolls Shane Warne over the 'snake-bite' incident" http://www.sportskeeda.com/cricket/kumar-sangakkara-trolls-shane-warne-snake-bite-incident, March 3, 2016. "It's the last time I'll play a four day game here.I'll be 40 in a few months ,this is about the end of my time in county cricket."