Poison Quotes
More Poison Quotes
Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day. … The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.
emma goldman— Emma Goldman, The Failure of Christianity (1913).
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
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.
When you destroy a blade of grass You poison England at her roots; Remember no man's foot can pass Where evermore no green life shoots.
Gordon Bottomley— 1912 'To Ironfounders and Others'.
Unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasureits hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave forever.
charlotte brontë— 1857 The Professor, ch.20.
Corruption is more than a poison afflicting Chinese business life. It is Chinese business life.
The Economist— 1994 The Economist, 29 Jan.
Luxury, that baneful poison, has unstrung and enfeebled her sons.
Abigail Adams— Letter to John Adams (13 February 1779).
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
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"
There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.
colette— Freedom (1908)
Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.
ralph waldo emerson— Poetry and Imagination
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)
Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people anyway. For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn't imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn't quite reach the lever on the voting machine.
hunter s. thompson— Pageant (July 1968)
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.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke.
john donne— No. 10, line 9.
I started to write [ The Name of the Rose ] in March of 1978, moved by a seminal idea. I wanted to poison a monk.
Umberto Eco— Quoted in Myriem Bouzaher's introduction to the French version of The Name of the Rose, Postille al Nome della Rosa, Page 18 (1985)
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.
Afterward Larry felt as if he had been through a long pillow-fight in which all the pillows had been treated with a low-grade poison gas.
Stephen King— Larry Underwood, Page 36
All the world seems in tune On a spring afternoon, When we're poisoning pigeons in the park. Every Sunday you'll see My sweetheart and me, As we poison the pigeons in the park.
tom lehrer— "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
It must cut up Liberty by the root and poison the Fountain of Publick Security; and who that has an English heart can ever be weary of asserting Liberty?
— Denouncing the patronage system (February, 1740).
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)
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 wrothe with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel (c. 1797-1801, published 1816), Part II.
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
There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act V, scene 1, line 80.
If one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her poison in order to procure an abortion, if the foetus is already formed or quickened, especially if it is quickened, he commits homicide.
— Henry Bracton, 2 On The Laws and Customs of England, 341 (S.E. Thorne trans., George E. Woodbine ed. 1968) (ca. 1250 A.D.).
So who's in a hurry?
robert benchley— On being told that the particular drink he was drinking was slow poison. Quoted in Nathaniel Benchley
