Quotes about snake (231 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Trust a snake before a Jew and a Jew before a Greek, but don't trust an Armenian”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 13
Source: Down and Out in Paris and London
Context: I only realized during my last week that I was being cheated, and, as I could prove nothing, only twenty-five francs were refunded. The doorkeeper played similar tricks on any employee who was fool enough to be taken in. He called himself a Greek, but in reality he was an Armenian. After knowing him I saw the force of the proverb "Trust a snake before a Jew and a Jew before a Greek, but don't trust an Armenian."

“When you know that the snake is in you – that's wisdom.”

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

Other

Wisdom

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Change

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Childhood , Personality , Forgetting , Pain

“Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

God , Religion , Game , Idea

“Owing to ignorance of the rope the rope appears to be a snake; owing to ignorance of the Self the transient state arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of the Self.”

Nanak (1469–1539) Founder of Sikhism

Guru Nanak quotes

Appearance

“The accepted theory that the serpent is evil cannot be substantiated. It has long been viewed as the emblem of immortality. It is the symbol of reincarnation, or metempsychosis, because it annually sheds its skin…It was also believed that snakes swallowed themselves, and this resulted in their being considered emblematic of the Supreme Creator, who periodically reabsorbed His universe back into Himself.”

Manly P. Hall (1901–1990) Canadian writer and mystic

Source: The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), Chapter: Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles and Birds

Universe , Evil

“There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
Or the way of a man with a maid”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

The Long Trail http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/longtrail.html, Stanza 5.
Other works
Context: There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
Or the way of a man with a maid;
But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea
In the heel of the North-East Trade.

Way

“I love you, Jonathan," she whispered.
A long arm snaked around her, and he pulled her against his side.
"I know," he said. "I just wanted to be sure you knew it, too.”

Tamora Pierce In the Hand of the Goddess

Source: In the Hand of the Goddess

Love

“The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Change

“Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Wedding , Marriage , Hope

“One who is blind throws away even a garland of flower placed on his head, thinking it is a snake.”

Kālidāsa Abhigyanashakuntalam

Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Sign of Shakuntala)

Flowers , Thinking

“Once centenarian teacher who had the body of an adolescent told me he had studied martial arts. "Me, too," I answered. We were in Notre Dame, and he said, "Attack me." I put myself in a combat position, and he moved his left hand in such an incredibly beautiful way that while I looked at it, fascinated, he gave me a big slap. "Beauty is the most dangerous weapon," he warned. It took me a long time to understand. He used a secret Chinese practice, which consists of drawing a snake in the air with your hand to distract the enemy. And that is how beauty is: the most awful weapon.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Secret , Beauty , Art , Way

“[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.

“One of the things you want to do with a conception like compassion is that you want to start thinking about it like a psychologist, or like a scientist, because compassion is actually definable. The easiest way to approach it is to think about it in Big-5 terms, because it maps onto Agreeableness, which you can break down into Compassion and Politeness. The liberal types, especially the Social Justice types, are way higher in Compassion. It's actually their fundamental characteristic. You might think, 'well, compassion is a virtue.' Yes, it's a virtue, but any uni-dimensional virtue immediately becomes a vice, because real virtue is the intermingling of a number of virtues and their integration into a functional identity that can be expressed socially. Compassion can be great if you happen to be the entity towards which it is directed. But compassion tends to divide the world into crying children and predatory snakes. So if you're a crying child, hey great. But if you happen to be identified as one of the predatory snakes, you better look the hell out. Compassion is what the mother grizzly bear feels for her cubs while she eats you because you got in the way. We don't want to be thinking for a second that compassion isn't a virtue that can lead to violence, because it certainly can. The other problem with compassion - this is why we have conscientiousness - there's five canonical personality dimensions. Agreeableness is good if you are functioning in a kin system. You want to distribute resources equally for example among your children, because you want all of them to have the same chance, and even roughly the same outcome. That is, a good one. But the problem is that you can't extend that moral network to larger groups. As far as I can tell, you need conscientiousness, which is a much colder virtue. It's also a virtue that is much more concerned with larger structures over the longer period of time. And you can think about conscientiousness as a form of compassion too. It's like: 'straighten the hell out, and work hard and your life will go well. I don't care how you feel about that right now.' Someone who's cold, that is, low in agreeableness and high in conscientiousness, will tell you every time. 'Don't come whining to me. I don't care about your hurt feelings. Do your goddamn job or you're going to be out on the street.' One might think, 'Oh that person is being really hard on me.' Not necessarily. They might have your long term best interest in mind. You're fortunate if you come across someone who is disagreeable. Not tyrannically disagreeable, but moderately disagreeable and high in conscientiousness because they will whip you into shape. And that's really helpful. You'll admire people like that. You won't be able to help it. You'll feel like, 'Oh wow, this person has actually given me good information, even though you will feel like a slug after they have taken you apart.' That's the compassion issue. You can't just transform that into a political stance. I think part of what we're seeing is actually the rise of a form of female totalitarianism, because we have no idea what totalitarianism would be like if women ran it, because that's never happened before in the history of the planet. And so, we've introduced women into the political sphere radically over the past fifty years. We have no idea what the consequence of that is going to be. But we do know from our research, which is preliminary, that agreeableness really predicts political correctness, but female gender predicts over and above the personality trait, and that's something we found very rarely in our research. Usually the sex differences are wiped out by the personality differences, but not in this particular case. On top of that, women are getting married later, and they're having children much later, and they're having fewer of them, and so you also have to wonder what their feminine orientation is doing with itself in the interim, roughly speaking. A lot of it is being expressed as political opinion. Fair enough. That's fine. But it's not fine when it starts to shut down discussion.”

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

Concepts

Life , Women , Children , People

“I've probably saved thousands of people's lives with my educational message on snake bites, how to get in around venomous anything. Yeah, I'm a thrill seeker, but crikey, education's the most important thing.”

Steve Irwin (1962–2006) Australian environmentalist and television personality

Online interview at Scientific American online (sciam.com) (26 March 2001)

People , Education

“Dragon is the category of primate predator. Predator is a weird category, right? Because there's crocodiles in it, and then there's lions. And they don't have much in common except that they eat you. So it's a functional category. So the dragon is the imagistic representation of the functional category of predator. It's like this: If you're a monkey, then a bird will pick you off, like an eagle. That's the wings. If it wasn't an eagle, then it was a cat (dragon claws), because they climb trees and give you a good chomping. And if it wasn't a cat, then you go down to the ground and a snake would get you, or maybe the snake would climb up the tree. So a dragon is a cat-snake-bird. And that's the thing that you really want to avoid. An the other thing is that it breathes fire, which is interesting because fire was both greatest friend and greatest enemy of humanity.”

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

Concepts

Cats , Bird , Tree

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Playing With Your Head (1986)

Life , God , Bad luck , Children

“Another illustration. When for the first time I met Mister Clay, the other day in the cars, in front of us sat an old gentleman with an enormous wen upon his neck. Everybody would say the wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's death after a while. But you couldn't cut it out, for he'd bleed to death in a minute. But would you engraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of sound and healthy men? He must endure and be patient, hoping for possible relief. The wen represents slavery on the neck of this country. This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would consider the snake a jewel, and the wen an ornament.”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Death , Men , Hope , Cars

“Some American writer has said “the snakes in this district may be divided into one species—the venomous”. The same principle applies here. Postage-Stamp-Cases may be divided into one species, the “Wonderland”. Imitations of it will soon appear, no doubt: but they cannot include the two Pictorial Surprises, which are copyright.You don't see why I call them 'Surprises'? Well, take the Case in your left hand, and regard it attentively. You see Alice nursing the Duchess's Baby? (An entirely new combination, by the way : it doesn't occur in the book.) Now, with your right thumb and forefinger, lay hold of the little book, and suddenly pull it out. The Baby has turned into a Pig I If that doesn't surprise you, why, I suppose you wouldn't be surprised if your own Mother-in-law suddenly turned into a Gyroscope!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

Books , Law , Way , Appearance

“We imagine that hardness, violence, slavery, peril in the street and in the heart, concealment, Stoicism, temptation, and deviltry of every sort, everything evil, frightful, tyrannical, raptor- and snake-like in man, serves as well for the advancement of the species "man" as their opposite.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Marianne Cowan [Henry Regnery Company, 1955, p. 50]; Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 1988, p. 130]

Imagination , Evil , Heart

“That dark dweller in Btaj
Is my only refuge.
O, my companion,
Worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon as you get it, it goes
I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge
Whom the snake of death
Will not devour.
My Beloved dwells in my heart,
I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.
Mir’s Lord is Hari, the Indestructible
My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee
Thy slave.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mīrābāī, in Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience http://books.google.co.in/books?id=HTepAfJv_6YC&pg=PA351, p. 351
Variant: O my companion, worldly comfort is illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death will not devour.
My beloved dwells in my heart all day,
I have actually seen that abode of joy.
Meera's lord is Hari, the indestructible.
My lord, I have taken refuge with you, your maidservant.

Death , Heart , Joy

“What's the enemy? It's the snake. Fair enough. That's good if you're a tree dwelling primate. But for a sophisticated human being with six million years of additional evolution, and you're really trying to solve the problem of what it is that's the great enemy of mankind, well it's the human propensity for evil… as such. Well, that's the figure of Satan. That's what that figure means. Just like there's a Logos that's the Truth that speaks order out of chaos at the beginning of time, there's an antithetical spirit - the hostile brother… that's Cain to Abel - that's doing exactly the opposite. It's motivated by absolutely nothing but malevolence and the willingness to destroy. And it has every reason for doing so. That's what's revealed in the next story in Cain and Abel. In one paragraph, the first glimmerings of that - outside of the strange insistence by the Christian mystics - on the identity of the snake in the Garden of Eden and the author of all evil himself.”

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

Concepts

Hostility , Truth , Motivation , Problem

“What does opening your eyes and realizing your vulnerability have to do with the knowledge of good and evil? Here's the key: You know you're vulnerable. No other animal knows that. You know what hurts you, because you're vulnerable. And now that you know what hurts you, you can figure out what hurts someone else. And as soon as you know what can hurt someone as, and you can use that, then you have the knowledge of good and evil. Well it's a pretty good trick that the snake pulled because it doesn't seem like the thing that we would have exactly wanted if we knew what the consequence was going to be. As soon as a human being is self conscious and aware of his nakedness, then he has the capacity for evil. That's introduced into the world right at that point.”

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

Concepts

World , Knowledge , Evil , Animals

“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!

Children , Lying , Question , Thinking

“Understand this, tell others: in my dream vultures chase me into my burning house. There, they pick out the brains of my family, dismember them, devour. I emerge from my home and I am burning, skin falling away like a snake as the structure crumbles into a black skeleton. I cannot fight off the vultures. A young man or woman emerges from the ashes. He/she doesn't save me, because he/she is holding my cracked and swollen heart in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. I can read it. It discusses and compares in great detail the differences between me and the vultures. He wraps my heart in the paper and tosses it to the ground. Can you see?”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

As quoted in MarilynManson.com (6 February 1999).
1990s

Family , Dreams , Home , Understanding

“It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"Moonlight"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

Sadness , Heart , Hurt , Happiness

“Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they could be right. It isn't the gold standard that they want to put us back on. They want something even more basic. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

World , Thinking , Country

“It is not thus that the Black Snake, the great General Wayne acted; he was a true warrior and a brave man; he was equal to any of our chiefs that we have, equal to any that we have ever had”

Anthony Wayne (1745–1796) Continental Army general

Reverend John Heckewelder, in his History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States, Chapter XXXIII, p. 192. [emphasis added]
Context: …They also make a distinction between a warrior and a murderer, which, as they explain it, is not much to our advantage. It is not, say they, the number of scalps alone which a man brings with him that prove him to be a brave warrior. Cowards have been known to return, and bring scalps home, which they had taken where they knew was no danger, where no attack was expected and no opposition made. Such was the case with those Christian Indians on the Muskingum, the friendly Indians near Pittsburg, and a great number of scattered, peaceable men of our nation, who were all murdered by cowards. It is not thus that the Black Snake, the great General Wayne acted; he was a true warrior and a brave man; he was equal to any of our chiefs that we have, equal to any that we have ever had…

“A crook is a crook, and there's something healthy about his frankness in the matter. But the guy who pretends he's enforcing the law and steals on his authority is a swell snake.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Guy , Law

“Another illustration. When for the first time I met Mister Clay, the other day in the cars, in front of us sat an old gentleman with an enormous wen upon his neck. Everybody would say the wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's death after a while. But you couldn't cut it out, for he'd bleed to death in a minute. But would you engraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of sound and healthy men? He must endure and be patient, hoping for possible relief. The wen represents slavery on the neck of this country. This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would consider the snake a jewel, and the wen an ornament.”

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Country , Thinking , Death , Men

“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, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Lying , Question , Thinking , Children

“The taipan is the one to watch out for. It is the most poisonous snake on Earth, with a lunge so swift and a venom so potent that your last mortal utterance is likely to be: "I say, is that a sn--”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

“But there's a juicy artery in your groin," he said after a pause to regroup, his voice as slithery as a snake on a slide.
"Don't you talk dirty," I told him. "I won't listen to that.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark

Source: Dead Until Dark

“Were you lying?"
"I never lie," he said piously. "About what?"
"The sand, the snake."
For a young man who never lied, he seemed surprisingly unoffended by the question.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Lie , Lying , Question

“I am like a snake who has already bitten. I retreat from a direct battle while knowing the slow effect of the poison.”

Anaïs Nin book Incest: From a Journal of Love

Source: Incest: From a Journal of Love

“When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere.”

Stacy Schiff (1961) American female Author, Pulitzer Prize winner

Source: Cleopatra: A Life

“i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Way

“I did not design this game; I did not name the stakes. I just happen to like apples; and I am not afraid of snakes.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Game

“For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake”

Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children

Source: Midnight's Children

“I walked over and looked closer at the statue of the goddess. She was wearing a headdress with a skull and a cobra and a crescent moon. Maybe this is what peace of mind was all about: having a poisonous snake on your head and smiling anyway.”

Wally Lamb book I Know This Much Is True

Source: I Know This Much Is True

Peace , Smile

“When they launch snakes you'll have your namesake.”

Philippa Gregory book The Other Boleyn Girl

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl

“Sasuke: Snakes can sense things through temperature, and they can also do it with their sense of smell by passing the smell in the mouth."

Itachi: You've learnt a lot… Dr. Snakes”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Sense

“Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Hope

“Dang! Snake people know how to make bundt cake.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

People

“Yes, reason has been a part of organized religion, ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Religion , Parting

“You are becoming a snake tomorrow, and as you start to devour people, with that mouth that has eaten others, you cry your love to me, and the same as today, I do wonder, will I be able to say my love to you?" - Gin Ichimaru awww”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Love , People , Cry

“Fear can't hurt you," she said. "When it washes over you, give it no power. It's a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

Fear , Knowledge , Hurt

“One school of thought says that the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy," Mad Rogan said. "For example, if you're terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it."
Aha. "I'm not handling your snake.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

School , Way , Madness

“Snake people do not drink milk," Kekrops said. "We are lactose intolerant reptiles."
"Me too!" Frank said. "I mean… lactose intolerant. Not a reptile. Though I can be a reptile sometimes-”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

People , Drink

“Don't touch me, I'm full of snakes.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

“Poison. The perfect weapon for a snake.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Perfection

“Life is fair. We all get the same nine-month shake in the box, and then the dice roll. Some people get a run of sevens. Some people, unfortunately, get snake-eyes. Its just how the world is.”

Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

Life , People , World , Box

“An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.”

Jerome Lawrence Inherit the Wind

Source: Inherit the Wind

Idea , Knowledge , Water , Parting

“I tiger can smile
A snake will say it loves you
Lies make us evil”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Love , Smile , Evil

“In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Nature and Selected Essays

Life , Youth

“Yesterday is skin on snake, to be shed many times.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Beyond The Highland Mist

Time

“Leo had seen Tia Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let's unleash her rage. Great idea.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Idea , Rage , Baby

“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

Feeling

“I always keep some whiskey handy in case I see a snake… which I also keep handy.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Source: W.C. Fields by Himself

Funny

“I would pay snakes to bite her.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

“Ah, come now. I look like an angel, but I'm not. The old rules of nature encompass many creatures like me. We're beautiful like the diamond-backed snake, or the striped tiger, yet we're merciless killers”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

Beauty , Angels , Nature

“I plead alignment to the flakes of the untitled snakes of a merry cow and to the republicrats for which they scam: one nacho, underpants with licorice and jugs of wine for owls.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Source: The Big Book of Hell

Wine

“He's as weird as snake's suspenders but sweet as a stolen kiss, too.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Kiss

“We can get you a throne with snakes. I’ll stand next to you and roar at anybody who fails to grovel. Fear Kate Daniels. She is a mighty and terrible ruler. Grendel can anoint the petitioners with his vomit. It’ll be great…”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Fear

“If you were to turn into a snake tomorrow and begin devouring Humans, and from the same mouth you devoured Humans, you cried out to me 'I love you!', would I still be able to say 'I love you' the same way I do today?”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Love , Way

“Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one. [Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here. ]”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Rattlesnake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Country

“This poet is now, most of the time, an elder statesman like Baruch or Smuts, full of complacent wisdom and cast-iron whimsy. But of course there was always a good deal of this in the official rôle that Frost created for himself; one imagines Yeats saying about Frost, as Sarah Bernhardt said about Nijinsky: “I fear, I greatly fear, that I have just seen the greatest actor in the world.”
Sometimes it is this public figure, this official rôle — the Only Genuine Robert Frost in Captivity — that writes the poems, and not the poet himself; and then one gets a self-made man’s political editorials, full of cracker-box philosophizing, almanac joke-cracking — of a snake-oil salesman’s mysticism; one gets the public figure’s relishing consciousness of himself, an astonishing constriction of imagination and sympathy; one gets sentimentality and whimsicality; an arch complacency, a complacent archness; and one gets Homely Wisdom till the cows come home.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Other Frost”, pp. 30–31
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Wisdom , World , Fear , Home

“I commend you on all you've done for PETA, wrestling the one-eyed trouser snake with your bare hands, gently cuddling it in your arms, and nurturing it back to health.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

To Pamela Anderson on the Comedy Central Roast (14 August 2005)

Health

“As the snake is separate from its slough, even so is the Spirit separate from the body.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 30

“She said: "I get scared when my eye blinks. Scared that during that second when my gaze is switched off, a snake or a rat or another man could slip into your place."”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Identity (1998)

“I can deal with functionality on a practical level. And I still have this relationship with this imaginary snake. My imaginary pal. If I’m going to be dealing in totally imaginary territory, it struck me that it would be useful to have a native as a guide. So I can have my imaginary conversations with my imaginary snake, and maybe it gives me information I already knew in part of myself, and maybe I just needed to make up an imaginary snake to tell me it.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Parting

“b>Don't let me die in an automobile
I wanna lie in an open field
Want the snakes to suck my skin
Want the worms to be my friends
Want the birds to eat my eyes
As here I lie
The clouds fly by</b”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

"The End; <i>Live in New York</i>" (1970), "The End; Live at The Hollywood Bowl" (1968)

Lie , Bird , Flying

“I put a What Would Jesus Do bracelet on my Jewish friend's wrist and it burned his skin. He threw it on the ground, it turned into a serpent, we both started laughing. We left it there, we hate snakes. We think they're slimy, even though we know they're not.”

Daniel Tosh (1975) American stand-up comedian

Completely Serious (2007)

Hate , Thinking

“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

“A guy once told me, I didn't know you went to South America. I said, I've never been to South America. But I saw you in a film (EMANUELLE GLI ULTIMI CANNIBALI), with snakes and every damn thing…That was Croce Verde.”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

Guy

“Wakin' up to find yourself creamin'
Check your fears and hope that you're dreamin'
A little space is all that I need
If these suckers just allow me to breathe
Snake pits and Lucifer's burns
Can't take the strength I've earned and learned
Stepped in depth of the same livin' hell
Ain't too proud to die here as well.Do Do Wap is strong in here;
Do Do Wap is strong in here, hey! hey!”

Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

Do Do Wap is Strong in Here, from Short Eyes (1977).
Song lyrics

Fear , Hope , Hell , Strong

“Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship.
Can anyone call this scheme of creation and damnation moral? It defies every principle of morality, as man conceives morality. Can anyone believe today that the whole world was destroyed by flood, save only Noah and his family and a male and female of each species of animal that entered the Ark? There are almost a million species of insects alone. How did Noah match these up and make sure of getting male and female to reproduce life in the world after the flood had spent its force? And why should all the lower animals have been destroyed? Were they included in the sinning of man? This is a story which could not beguile a fairly bright child of five years of age today.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)

Life , God , Age , World

“This is a footnote to our gay-marriage discussion. A woman in India last week married a snake. And it was done at a traditional Hindu ceremony attended by 2,000 people. Now, I would like to ask the proponents of gay marriage, which after all violates traditions going back through all of human history, to now absolutely positively guarantee that the next movement is not going to be allowing people to marry their pet horse, dog or cat. And you know what? Given the anything-goes culture we live in, I don't think they can deliver that guarantee.”

Dan Henninger

Henninger, D. (Commentator). (2006, June 10). Journal Editorial Report. New York: Fox News Channel.

Marriage , People , Dogs , History

“I should want to go home, like Fenella. I should be so tired of the shambles here, the obscurantism, the colour-prejudice, the laziness and ignorance, as to desire nothing better than a headship in a cold stone country school in England. But I love this country. I feel protective towards it. Sometimes just before dawn breaks, I feel that somehow I enclose it, contain it. I feel that it needs me. This is absurd, because snakes and scorpions are ready to bite me, a drunken Tamil is prepared to knife me, the Chinese in the town would like to spit at me, some day a Malay boy will run amok and try to tear me apart. But it doesn’t matter. I want to live here; I want to be wanted. Despite the sweat, despite the fever, the prickly heat, the mosquitoes, the terrorists, the fools at the bar of the club, despite Fenella.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

Love , School , Fools , Feeling

“!-- Setting forth once more, embarking upon the search once again: the narrow path that snakes among livid rocks and desolate, camel-colored hills; white houses hanging suspended from cliffs, looking as though they were about to let go and fall on the wayfarer’s head; the smell of sweating hides and cow dung; the buzz of afternoon; the screams of monkeys leaping about amid the branches of the trees or scampering along the flat rooftops or swinging from the railings of a balcony; overhead, birds circling and the bluish spirals of smoke rising from kitchen fires; the almost pink light on the stones; the taste of salt on parched lips; the sound of loose earth slithering away beneath one’s feet; the dust that clings to one’s sweat-drenched skin, makes one’s eyes red, and chokes one’s lungs; i --> Images, memories, fragmentary shapes and forms — all those sensations, visions, half-thoughts that appear and disappear in the wink of an eye, as one sets forth to meet…. The path also disappears as I think of it, as I say it.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 1

Color , Search , Bird , Thinking

“The capacity to transform itself from the inside makes capitalism a somewhat peculiar beast - chameleon-like, it perpetually changes it colour; snake-like, it periodically sheds its skin.”

David Harvey (1935) British anthropologist

Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 10, Finance Capital And Its Contradictions, p. 327

Change

“The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt—the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 7, Priscus

God , World , Religion , Evil

“Supernatural agents are critical components of all religions but not of all ideologies. They are, in part, by-products of a naturally selected cognitive mechanism for detecting agents-such as predators, protectors, and prey-and for dealing rapidly and economically with stimulus situations involving people and animals. This innate releasing mechanism is trip-wired to attribute agency to virtually any action that mimics the stimulus conditions of natural agents: faces on clouds, voices in the wind, shadow figures, the intentions of cars or computers, and so on. Among natural agents, predators such as snakes are as likely to be candidates for deification as are protectors, such as parent-figures.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 15
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

People , Religion , Cars , Nature

“Naturally, the little wars were dressed up in ritual and significance. War spear challenge was followed by war dance, and invocation of demons, the one-eyed snake and diverse totems. I bowed to none of these, having seen early the vulgarity and impotence of the tribal pantheon. Generally men create gods in their own image.”

Tanith Lee book Vazkor, Son of Vazkor

Book One, Part I “The Krarl”, Chapter 4 (p. 31)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)

Men , God , War , Nature

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life , Death , Pain , Family

“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

Family , Knowledge , Evil , Personality

“Here is the core of evil, the burning hell without let-up,
The canker corrupting all things, Fafnir the worm,
Syphilis of the State, of all kingdoms
Wart of the common-weal,
Wenn-maker, corrupter of all things
Darkness the defiler
Twin evil of envy,
Snake of the seven heads, Hydra, entering all things
Passing the doors of temples defiling the grove of Paphos,
neschek, the crawling evil,
slime, the corrupter of all things,
Poisoner of the fount,
of all fountains, neschek,
The serpent, evil against Nature's increase,
Against beauty”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Addendum for C
neschek is a transliteration of the Hebrew "נֶשֶׁך" meaning "usury"
Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII

Beauty , Hell , Nature , Evil

“If it came on the evening news tonight that there were five grizzly bears roaming around Cobb County, do you know what would happen by six o'clock in the morning? They would all be dead. Because every redneck in four states would be out there with a rifle, trying to shoot one, right? And whoever could shoot the biggest one would be a hero. They would have his picture on the front page, "Bubba shot the Grizzly Bear" and saved the village. That is exactly what happened to the dragons. If you could figure out a way to kill a dragon, they would be telling stories about you around the campfire. People killed dragons for meat, because they were a menace, to prove that you were a hero, or to prove that you are superior, in competition for land, or for medicinal purposes. Many ancient recipes call for dragon blood, dragon bones, dragon saliva, why? Gilgamesh is famous for slaying a dragon. A Chinese legend tells about a guy named Yu that surveyed the land of China. It says, that after the Flood he surveyed the land, he divided it off into sections. He built channels to drain water off to sea and make the land livable again. Many snakes and dragons were driven from the marshlands. You know that's normal that if you want to build a city. You have to drive off the dragons, then build your city. It was expected that you have got to drive the dragons away or kill them. Why would the Chinese calendar have eleven real animals: the pig, the duck, the dog, and … the dragon? Why would they put just one "mythical" animal in there? Could it be at the time they that they came up with these animals there were 12 real animals? There is one of the oldest pieces of pottery on Planet Earth. It's a piece of slate from Egypt; the first dynasty of United Egypt. It shows long necked dragons […] Why would they put long necked dinosaurs on pottery 3,800 years ago? Here are two long necked dinosaurs with a sheep in between them in their mouths. Here is a hippo tusk from the twelve century B. C., showing an animal with a long neck, and a long tail. Here's a cylinder seal, showing what appears quite obviously to be a long neck dinosaur. The Bible talks about a fiery flying serpent, in Isaiah 14.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

People , Dogs , Way , Guy

“They are the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy and the penetrating venom.”

Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist

On the Shia of Iraq. Zarqawi in his own words http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5058474.stm BBC News (January 2004)

“If you annoy the Hog-nosed Snake enough, he will roll over on his back and play dead. If you turn him right-side up, he will roll over to prove that he is dead. [Footnote:] While he is playing dead, you can go straight up to him and step on his head or smash him with a big club.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Hog-Nosed Snake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Dead

“What’s transcendental in Blake is not the statically geometrical, but the sense of arrested energy: the wriggling vines & snakes, flames & the like…It’s an expression of the belief that every object is an event.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The "Third Book" Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972 (2002), p. 14

Sense

“The only difference between miracles and magic is who does it. A boat may be considered a ship if it’s big enough. When a rich man is neurotic, we call him eccentric. When a V. I. P. is murdered, it’s an assassination. When a god performs magic, he’s working miracles. If Moses or the Pharaoh turned a staff into a snake, that’s magic. If God does the exact same trick, that’s a miracle.”

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

Patheos, Philosophistry http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/04/12/philosophistry/ (April 12, 2017)

God

“Fascists are not human. A snake is more human.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Referring to Spanish politician José María Aznar as a fascist, November 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7089131.stm
2007

“Though but ten years old he was fully as strong as the average man of thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever becomes. And day by day his strength was increasing.
His life among these fierce apes had been happy; for his recollection held no other life, nor did he know that there existed within the universe aught else than his little forest and the wild jungle animals with which he was familiar.
He was nearly ten before he commenced to realize that a great difference existed between himself and his fellows. His little body, burned brown by exposure, suddenly caused him feelings of intense shame, for he realized that it was entirely hairless, like some low snake, or other reptile.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 5 : The White Ape

Life , Feeling , Strong , Universe

“Ghidrah was merely meant to be a modern interpretation of the eight-headed snake of Japanese myth.”

Ishirō Honda (1911–1993) Japanese film director

As quoted by David Milner, "Ishiro Honda Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/honda.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)

“A man who submits himself wholeheartedly to God might handle them and not be harmed. That was the faith my father had professed. Certainly he trusted God, in his own case, and believed God manifested Himself in the rolled eyes of his congregants and in their babble of incomprehensible tongues. Trust and be saved, was his philosophy. And yet in the end it was the snakes that killed him. I wondered which element of the calculation had ultimately failed him—human faith or divine patience.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), pp. 355-356

God , Faith , Patience

“The Christian movement began with John the Baptist. … in his recorded teaching to the people there is not a word about the customary ritual of religion, about increased Sabbath observance, about stricter washings and sacrifices, or the ordinary exercises of piety. He spoke only of repentance, of ceasing from wrongdoing. He hailed the professional exponents of religion who came to hear him, as a brood of snakes wriggling away from the flames of the judgment. …The way to prepare for the Messianic era and to escape the wrath of the Messiah was to institute a brotherly life and to equalize social inequalities.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 49-50

Life , People , Religion , Way

“O, Koh, the limerick is the unrefiner's fire. It is as false and lifeless, as anonymous, as a rubber snake, a Dixie cup. It is indeed the dildo of desire! No one ever found a thought in one. No one ever found a helpful hint concerning life, a consoling sense. The feelings it harbors are the cold, the bitter, dry ones: scorn contempt, disdain, disgust. Yes. Yet for that reason, nothing is more civilized than this simple form. -pg 177”

William H. Gass book The Tunnel

The Tunnel (1995)

Life , Feeling , Sense , Help