Serpent Quotes - Page 4

• Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise: so say the most ancient and most modern serpents.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Knowledge, Tree, Paradise

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Beyond Good and Evil”, p.80, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length; These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Mother, Hands, Endurance

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820). “Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts with Other Poems”, p.152

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• Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.

  John Owen

  Blow, Men, Thinking

  John Owen (1994). “The Works of John Owen”

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• In Eden who sleeps happiest? The serpent.

  Derek Walcott

  Sleep, Eden, Evil

  Derek Walcott (2014). “Sea Grapes”, p.20, Macmillan

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• Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.

  Francis Bacon

  Men

  Francis Bacon (1765). “The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes”, p.63

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• In Egypt the staff was rendered as a shepherd's crook that was a symbol for the pharaohs, the Druids of Egypt. The pharaohs wore the serpent on their headgear and the serpent was the symbol of the Magi of Ireland, the Naddreds, or Druids.

  Michael Tsarion

  Egypt, Shepherds, Crooks

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• A drawing, brought by Colonel Coombs, from a sculptured column in a cave-temple in the South of India, represents the first pair at the foot of the ambrosial tree, and a serpent entwined among the heavily-laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth.

  Godfrey Higgins

  Drawing, Feet, Tree

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• Among all the kinds of serpents, there is none comparable to the Dragon.

  Edward Topsell

  Dragons, Kind

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• I have seen some who did not know when to turn aside their eyes in meeting yours. A truly confident and magnanimous spirit is wiser than to contend for the mastery in such encounters. Serpents alone conquer by the steadiness of their gaze. My friend looks me in the face and sees me, that is all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Friendship, Eye, Snakes

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.496, Simon and Schuster

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• Watch constantly against those things which are thought to be no temptations. The most poisonous serpents are found where the sweetest flowers grow. Cleopatra was poisoned by an asp that was brought to her in a basket of fair flowers. Sharp-edged tools, long handled, wound at last.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Prayer, Flower, Long

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• The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

  Abraham Verghese

  Snakes, Slides, Enough

  Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.385, Random House India

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• Lucifer represents life, though, progress, civilization, liberty, independence. Lucifer is the Logos, the Serpent, the Savior.

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Civilization, Independence, Progress

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• So little have thee first Christians (who despoiled the Jews of their Bible) understood the first four chapters of Genesis in their esoteric meaning, that they never perceived that not only was no sin intended in this disobedience, but that actually the 'Serpent' was 'the Lord God' himself, who, as the Ophis, the Logos, or the bearer of divine creative wisdom, taught mankind to become creators in their turn.

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Christian, Creative, Four

  H.P. Blavatsky (2016). “The Secret Doctrine”, p.722, Penguin

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• Remember, the serpent is still living in the Garden of Eden. Only the heterosexual couple was expelled.

  Edward Carpenter

  Couple, Garden, Eden

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• What are you to us, you who are cut off from God, a fugitive for Heaven, and a slave of evil? You dare not do anything to us: Christ, the Son of God, has dominion over us and over all. Leave us, you thing of bane. We are made steadfast by the uprightness of His Cross. Serpent, we trample on your head.

  Seraphim of Sarov

  Son, Cutting, Evil

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• Examining this water...I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise...and I judge that some of these little creatures were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones I have ever yet seen, upon the rind of cheese, in wheaten flour, mould, and the like.

  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

  Wise, Science, Water

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• So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
  No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd
  With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,
  And whom today the Spring no more concerns.
  Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;
  This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part
  To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.
  Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,
  Nor stay till on the year's last lily-stem
  The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Art, Spring, Flower

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frank Laurence Lucas (1933). “Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Anthology”, p.169, CUP Archive

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• The deadly Hydra now is the hydra of Equality. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity is the three-fanged serpent.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Equality, Liberty, Three

  D. H. Lawrence, George J. Zytaruk, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.366, Cambridge University Press

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• In the beginning, said a Persian poet Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgram it was a woman.

  William Sharp

  Women, Apples, Sea

  William Sharp, Elizabeth Amelia Sharp (1912). “Selected Writings”

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• Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.It is a cold slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Fear, Evil, World

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of L. M. Montgomery (Illustrated)”, p.3536, Delphi Classics

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• If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

  William Shakespeare

  Good Night, Dream, Liars

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 2, l. 54

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• Passing just lately over this lake, ... and examining this water next day, I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise, and orderly arranged, after the manner of the copper or tin worms, which distillers use to cool their liquors as they distil over. The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one's head. ... all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well. [The earliest recorded observation of the common green alga Spyrogyra.]

  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

  Wise, Science, Hair

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• Some languages are musical in themselves, so that it is pleasant to hear any one read or converse in them, even though we do not understand a word that we hear.... Others are full of growling, snarling, hissing sounds, as though wild beasts and serpents had first taught the people to speak.

  Horace Mann

  People, Musical, Firsts

  Horace Mann (1867). “Thoughts”, p.54

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• I was a coward. I used to be haunted by the fear of thieves, ghosts and serpents. I did not dare to stir out of doors at night. Darkness was a terror to me. It was almost impossible for me to sleep in the dark, as I would imagine ghosts coming from one direction, thieves from another and serpents from a third. I could not therefore bear to sleep without a light in the room.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Sleep, Dark, Night

  Mahatma Gandhi (1948). “Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth”, p.17, Courier Corporation

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• Military glory-that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood-that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Peace, Military, War

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “Abraham Lincoln's Wit & Wisdom”, p.64, Courier Corporation

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