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)
While Socrates empties the cup of poison with unshaken soul, Christ exclaims, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me." Christ in this respect is the self-confession of human sensibility.
Ludwig Feuerbach— Das Wesen des Christentums (1841). Translated by Mary Anne Evans (pen name: George Eliot) as "The Essence of Christianity," 1854.
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
Pogroms are as old as Christendom; but without railways, the telegraph and poison gas there could have been no Holocaust. There have always been tyrannies; but without modern means of transport and communication, Stalin and Mao could not have built their gulags.
john n. gray— The Human: Why Humanity Will Never Master Technology (p. 12)
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
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 on the brain. 226
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— 1816 'Christabel', pt.2.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort or the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.
william empson— Missing Dates (1935)
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends. Variant translation: In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
Aeschylus— line 224
The men went to Catraeth, swift was their host, the pale mead was their feast and it was their poison.
aneirin— Stanza A8, pp. 118.
— "This famous quotation does not mean that the Gododdin army was too drunk to fight properly, but that they lost their lives in 'earning their mead'" (Jackson The Gododdin p. 35).
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,Expels diseases, softens every pain,Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.
john armstrong— Book IV, line 512.
There are also many instances where people hostile to the Soviet state are attempting by means of deceit and provocation to poison the minds of our citizens and compel them to believe in monstrous lies.
filipp golikov— Quoted in "Behind the Iron Curtain," by George Moorad (1946)
My songs, they say, are poisoned.How else, love, could it be?Thou hast, with deadly magic,Poured poison into me.
Heinrich Heine— Lyrical Intermezzo, 57; in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 73
The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century.
barbara tuchman— p. 412 (A Distant Mirror (1978))
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.
william empson— "Missing Dates" (1937), line 1; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 79.
Much there is I can stand, and most things not easy to suffer I bear with quiet resolve, just as a god commands it. Only a few I find as repugnant as snakes and poison These four: tobacco smoke, bedbugs, garlic, and †.
— Variant translation: Lots of things I can stomach. Most of what irks me
I take in my stride, as a god might command me.
But four things I hate more than poisons & vipers:
tobacco smoke, garlic, bedbugs, and Christ.Epigram 67, as translated by Jerome Rothenberg
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— "The atheist delusion," The Guardian (2008-03-15)
It's a lack of clarity that creates chaos and frustration. Those emotions are poison to any living goal.
steve maraboli— p. 101 (Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010))
How would your life be different if… You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day … You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others.
steve maraboli— p. 119 (Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010))
“Friendly fascism,” says Sadeq. “It matters not, whosoever is in charge. I could tell you tales from my parents, of growing up with a revolution. To never harbor self-doubt is poison for the soul, and these aliens want to inflict their certainties upon us.”
charles stross— Chapter 5 (“Router”), p. 201
Their [those with eating disorders'] task is to rescue themselves from a drive that is destroying them. Food embodies the false values that their own bodies refuse to assimilate, by which I mean that their bodies become edemic, bloated, allergic, or resort to vomiting the poison out. The unconscious body, and certainly the conscious body, will not tolerate the negative mother.
Marion Woodman— p. 15 (Addiction to Perfection (1982))
What's one man's poison, signor, Is another's meat or drink.
— Act III, scene 2.
Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or whether it be poison from a million of buzzing,tiny musquitoes; if there be a smart, go to Him, and He will help you bear it. He will do more, He will bear it with you; for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us.
— Alexander Maclaren, p. 588. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, Expels diseases, softens every pain, Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.
— Book IV, line 512.
O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
— Hamlet, scene ii; variant, from the First Folio: The rest is silence. O, o, o, o. [Dies]
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s tooth.
— Philip Faulconbridge, scene i
