Reptiles Quotes - Page 3

• What greater weakness can there be than not to know what is the source of one's being, of one's life, of one's senses, of one's knowledge, and what is to be their end? What can be more deeply disheartening than to wonder whether one's soul is, perhaps, a material thing, like a stone or a reptile, corruptible like these base creatures? Is there not more strength and greatness of mind in admitting the idea of a being superior to all other beings, who has made them all and to whom all owe their existence; of a being supremely perfect, who is pure, who had no beginning and can have no ending, of whom our soul is the image and, so to speak, a portion, being a spiritual and immortal thing?

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Spiritual, Men, Ideas

  "Of Freethinkers". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98)

  Yann Martel

  Giving, Shining, Bird

  Yann Martel (2009). “Life of Pi”, p.108, Vintage Canada

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• I'm always keen to use my body in my work, so I'm looking forward to the motion capture for Smaug. Both Gollum and King Kong were primates, whereas I'm playing a serpent, so it'll be interesting - I'll have to tie my legs together, possibly, or else they'll be kind of splayed out to the side as a reptile's should be.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Kings, Ties, Interesting

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• The geologist, in those tables of stone which form his records, finds no examples of dynasties once passed away again returning. There has no repetition of the dynasty of the fish, of the reptile, of the mammal. The dynasty of the future is to have glorified man for its inhabitant; but it is to be the dynasty-"the kingdom"-not of glorified man made in the image of God, but of God himself in the form man.

  Hugh Miller

  Future, Science, Men

  Hugh Miller (1857). “The Testimony of the Rocks: Or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed”, p.178

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• When you look at Earth from that one picture, the one from space, it's really a rather attractive thing. I have nothing against the planet per se. I root for the big comet or asteroid as a way of cleansing the planet. The comet or asteroid 65 million years ago is probably what gave us our opening to replace the reptiles. The greatest entertainment I have in my life is chronicling internally, not necessarily for the public, the slow dissolution of order.

  George Carlin

  Attractive Things, Order, Years

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• The reptiles had taken over the city. Once again they were the dominant form of life. Looking up at the ancient impassive faces, Kerans could understand the curious fear they roused, rekindling archaic memories of the terrifying jungles of the Paleocene, when the reptiles had gone down before the emergent mammals, and sense the implacable hatred one zoological class feels towards another that usurps it.

  J. G. Ballard

  Memories, Taken, Animal

  J. G. Ballard (1965). “The Drowned World and the Wind From Nowhere”

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• To me there never has been a higher source of honour or distinction than that connected with advances in science. I have not possessed enough of the eagle in my character to make a direct flight to the loftiest altitudes in the social world; and I certainly never endeavored to reach those heights by using the creeping powers of the reptile, who in ascending, generally chooses the dirtiest path, because it is the easiest.

  Humphry Davy

  Character, Ambition, Science

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• So there you have it: Nature is a rotten mess. But that's only the beginning. If you take your eyes off it for one second, it will kill you. Thorns, insects, fungus, worms, birds, reptiles, wild animals, raging rivers, bottomless ravines, dry deserts, snow, quicksand, tumbleweeds, sap, and mud. Rot, poison and death. That's Nature.It's a wonder you even step outside of your cabin, I said.My bravery exceeds my good sense, he said.

  Lee Goldberg

  Eye, Animal, Rivers

  Lee Goldberg (2009). “Mr. Monk in Trouble”, p.70, Penguin

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• At the end [when I speak about] magma under us everywhere, how it's monumentally indifferent to scurrying roaches, recoiled reptiles, and vapid humans alike. You see, you would never hear anything like that in a National Geographic or a PBS movie. This is clearly a transgression when it comes to being politically correct with your commentary.

  Werner Herzog

  Pbs, Vapid, Roaches

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes; but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the fields; but theyare starving in the midst of its abundance: the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden; but they feel as reptiles that infest it.

  Washington Irving

  Native American, Eye, Garden

  "Traits of Indian character". Book by Washington Irving, 1819.

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• What cities, as great as this, have... promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some. The sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others... Here stood their citadel, but now grown over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruins.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Weed, Cities, House

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 686-88, The Bee, No, IV. A City Night-Piece, 1922.

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• I brought the birdcages to the windows. I opened the windows, and opened the birdcages. I poured the fish down the drain. I took the dogs and cats downstairs and removed their collars. I released the insects onto the street. And the reptiles. And the mice. I told them, Go. All of you. Go. And they went. And they didn’t come back

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Dog, Cat, Window

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.185, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Loch Ness monster doesn't exist either. Loch Ness is just not big enough to hide a thirty foot amphibian or reptile for hundreds of years.

  Brian Jones

  Years, Feet, Monsters

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I abide in a goodly Museum, Frequented by sages profound: 'Tis a kind of strange mausoleum, Where the beasts that have vanished abound. There's a bird of the ages Triassic, With his antediluvian beak, And many a reptile Jurassic, And many a monster antique.

  May Kendall

  Museums, Profound, Bird

  May Kendall (1887). “Dreams to Sell”

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• It might go down better than appearing as a giant reptile encased in a ball of fire and forcing yourself on her.' 'WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BRING THAT UP?

  Meg Rosoff

  Fire, Giants, Balls

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• Who are you?" Violet asked. It is confusing to fall asleep in the daytime and wake up at night. "what are you doing with Uncle Monty's reptiles?" Klaus asked. It is also confusing to realize you have been sleeping on stairs, rather than in a bed or sleeping bag. "Dixnik?" Sunny asked. It is always confusing why anyone would choose to wear a plaid shirt.

  Daniel Handler

  Uncles, Fall, Sleep

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• When I take my kids to the zoo in Los Angeles, they always look the longest at the creature that moves the least - especially those in the reptile house. I asked myself: 'Who are the people that are pretty cool but also very still and monotone in their expression?' and I thought of Jose Mourinho.

  Julian Sands

  Soccer, Football, Zoos

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• But for that blindness which is inseparable from malice, what terrible powers of evil would it possess! Fortunately for the world, its venom, like that of the rattlesnake, when most poisonous, clouds the eye of the reptile, and defeats its aim.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Eye, Clouds, Evil

  William Gilmore Simms (1853). “Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside”, p.80

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• Novelist time is reptile time; novelists tend to be ruminant and brooding, nursers of ancient grievances, second-guessers, Tuesday afternoon quarterbacks, retrospectators, endlessly, like slumping hitters, studying the film of their old whiffs.

  Michael Chabon

  Tuesday, Novelists, Afternoon

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• The minds of stone lovers had colonised stones as lichens clung to them with golden or grey-green florid stains. The human world of stones is caught in organic metaphors like flies in amber. Words came from flesh and hair and plants. Reniform, mammilated, botryoidal, dendrite, haematite. Carnelian is from carnal, from flesh. Serpentine and lizardite are stone reptiles ; phyllite is leafy-green.

  A. S. Byatt

  Hair, Mind, Green

  A S Byatt (2011). “A Stone Woman (Storycuts)”, p.11, Random House

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• [St. Patrick] was a terror to any snake that came in his path, whether it was the cold, slimy reptile sliding along the ground or the more dangerous snake that oppresses men through false teachings. And he drove the snakes out of the minds of men, snakes of superstition and brutality and cruelty.

  Arthur Brisbane

  Teaching, Men, Snakes

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• You can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege - to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap!

  Ambrose Bierce

  Years, Leeches, Four

  "The Shadow on The Dial and Other Essays". Book by Ambrose Bierce, www.pub22.net. 1909.

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• I note that the Africa loves to depict the grace of reptiles.

  Zora Neale Hurston

  Grace, Notes

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• The universe couldn't care less about us. I say this very clearly in the film [ "Into the Inferno"]: our planet is "indifferent to scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles and vapid humans alike."

  Werner Herzog

  Vapid, Roaches, Care

  Source: www.rogerebert.com

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• She pulls away, pats me on the shoulder with three mini-pats, like those used to pet reptiles.

  Dave Eggers

  Pet, Three, Used

  Dave Eggers (2014). “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Picador Classic”, p.344, Pan Macmillan

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