Poison Quotes
More Poison Quotes
The strongest poison ever known Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
william blake— Auguries of Innocence, lines 97-8 (c. 1803)
Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. – In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? – Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?
blair hugh— Quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern, ed. Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company (1908), p. 23
Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish;For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth;Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.
martin farquhar tupper— Of Truth in Things False
Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bear the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are the undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.
isaac leib peretz— "Manginot HaZman". HaAsif, 1886, p. 729f.
Revenge is like a poison. It can take you over, and before you know it, it can turn you into something ugly.
— Aunt May, Spider-Man 3.
Might there not be a connection between the attempt to eradicate religion and the loss of freedom? It is unlikely that Mao, who launched his assault on the people and culture of Tibet with the slogan "Religion is poison," would have agreed that his atheist world-view had no bearing on his policies.
— John N. Gray (2008) "The atheist delusion," The Guardian, 2008-03-15
Science isthegreat antidoteto the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
Adam Smith— 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.5, ch.1, pt.3, article 3.
Christ for myguardianship today: against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, that there may come to me a multitude of rewards; Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ over me, Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me, Christ in lying down, Christ in sitting, Christ in rising up, Christ in the heart of every person who may thinkof me, Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak of me, Christ in every eye, which may look on me! Christ in every ear, which may hear me!
— St Patrick's Breastplate, traditionally attributed to the saint.
Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honeyand wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
jonathan swift— 1704 The Battle of the Books.
Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words.
joyce brothers— "When Your Husband's Affection Cools" in Good Housekeeping (May 1972)
I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.
frédéric chopin— As quoted in Chopin.
— Variant translation: I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.
Leaden trumpets spit the soot of power they say"I'm on your side when nobody is, cause nobody is.Come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your ear"
st. vincent— "Paris Is Burning"
I do not ask that flowers should always springBeneath my feetI know too well the poison and the stingOf things too sweet.
adelaide anne procter— "Per Pacem ad Lucem"
Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
jonathan swift— The Battle of the Books, preface (1704)
We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.
warren buffett— 1992 Chairman's Letter
'What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and happy friends?'
mikhail bulgakov— Book One in 'Unwelcome Visitors', MG
Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth, And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Part II, l. 408.
When animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight).
carl jung— Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.338.30
She dwells with Beauty Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
john keats— "Ode on Melancholy", st. 3.
The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".
friedrich nietzsche— Die Lehre von der Gleichheit! ... Aber es giebt gar kein giftigeres Gift: denn sie scheint von der Gerechtigkeit selbst gepredigt, während sie das Ende der Gerechtigkeit ist... "Den Gleichen Gleiches, den Ungleichen Ungleiches - das wäre die wahre Rede der Gerechtigkeit: und, was daraus folgt, Ungleiches niemals gleich machen."Expeditions of an Untimely Man, §48 Progress in my sense (Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen §48 Fortschritt in meinem Sinne). Chapter title also translated as: Skirmishes of an Untimely Man, Kaufmann/Hollingdale translation, and Raids of an Untimely Man, Richard Polt translation
Now that I can see it's the queen's new clothes Now that I can hear all your poison prose Now that I can talk with my tongue unfroze I'm not so sure of Santa or the buck tooth fairy There are no words for me inside your dictionary
andy partridge— "Your Dictionary"
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further.
— Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 2, line 23.
Slander is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the persons who listen to it.
— St. Bernard, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 214.
Why do we profess to so love and adore and worship and seek closeness to the wolf, the supposed poster child for all that's remote, wild and free, the mournful soul-searching stuff of poetry and song, not to mention fawning documentaries and movies, while at the same time we're taught to despise and persecute by any means bullet, trap, wire, poison its close cousin and equally beautiful and rightful occupant of the wild, the coyote?
— John Harrigan, Hate coyotes, adore the wolf: explain, please, NewHampshire.com (Sep. 15, 2012)
The honey-bee that wanders all day long The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er, To gather in his fragrant winter store, Humming in calm content his winter song, Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast, The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips, But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips The single drop of sweetness closely pressed Within the poison chalice.
Anne C. Lynch Botta— Anne C. Lynch Botta, The Lesson of the Bee.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.
— Jesus, Mark 16:16–18
Faith draws the poison from every grief, takes the sting from every loss, and quenches the fire of every pain; and only faith can do it.
— Josiah Gilbert Holland, as quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 218
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.
— Jesus, Mark 16:16–18
