Poison Quotes - Page 28

• Woes and wonders of power, that tonic hell, synthesis of poison and panacea.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Synthesis, Woe, Wonder

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.

  Jean Cocteau

  Truth, Honor, Intuition

  "Moments of Clarity". Book by Thomas L. Jackson, March 31, 2002.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Theology is to religion what poisons are to food.

  Voltaire

  Theology

  "Teaching the Bible as Literature in Public High School (Part 9)" by Frank Breslin, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 27, 2014.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• A conscious attempt to fall asleep is sure to produce insomnia, to try to be conscious of one's own digestion is a sure way to upset the stomach. Consciousness is a poison when we apply it to ourselves. Consciousness is a light directed outward. it's like the headlights on a locomotive—turn them inward and you'd have a crash.

  Boris Pasternak

  Fall, Insomnia, Light

  17 Copy quote

• Grow the lawn and mow the lawn always keep the TV on, brush your teeth and kill the germs, poison apples, poison worms.

  Trenton Lee Stewart

  Apples, Teeth, Germs

  8 Copy quote

• The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sout with the same tongue.

  Neil Gaiman

  Sweet, Wine, Use

  4 Copy quote

• I came," she said, "hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy." Cherish it!" cried Hilarious, fiercely. "What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by it's little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Littles, Fantasy, Cherish

  "The Crying of Lot 49". Book by Thomas Pynchon, 1966.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I spoke a gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched you with my lips, may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this roof that gave me shelter! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon all belonging to you!

  Charles Dickens

  Hands, Sorrow, Tears

  Charles Dickens (2016). “Dombey and Son”, p.488, Xist Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar

  James St. James

  Giving, Sugar Coating, Pills

  James St. James (2003). “Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland”, p.187, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Oh, mercy. If it catches you in the wrong frame of mind, the King James Bible can make you want to drink poison in no uncertain terms.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Kings, Mind, Want

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.163, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Human rights pale beside the rights of machines. In more and more cities, especially in the great metropolises of the South, people have been banned. Automobiles usurp human space, poison the air, and frequently murder the interlopers who invade their conquered territory -and no one lifts a finger to stop them. Is there a difference between violence that kills by car and that which kills by knife or bullet?" (p.231)

  Eduardo Galeano

  Rights, Air, Knives

  7 Copy quote

• of all the weapons of destruction that man could invent, the most terrible-and the most powerful-was the word. Daggers and spears left traces of blood; arrows could be seen at a distance. Poisons were detected in the end and avoided. But the word managed to destroy without leaving clues.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Powerful, Distance

  6 Copy quote

• A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Dream, Sweet, Blood

  5 Copy quote

• Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Revenge, Sensual

  Susan Sontag (1983). “A Susan Sontag reader”, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Honesty was a tough customer... Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn't easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. Once it was there, you couldn't tell it what to do. You had to really fight to keep it from taking over.

  Ann Brashares

  Honesty, Fighting, Ivy

  Ann Brashares (2008). “The Last Summer (of You and Me)”, p.163, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wondered why it had to be so poisonous. Oleanders could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn't they just be bitter? They weren't like rattlesnakes, they didn't even eat what they killed. The way she boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L.A., the hatred, the callousness, something we didn't want to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn't a source of poison, but just another victim.

  Janet Fitch

  Thinking, Hatred, Needs

  10 Copy quote

• An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, "If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea." Churchill's response, "Ma'am if you were my wife I would drink it.

  Winston Churchill

  Husband, Wife, Tea

  11 Copy quote

• I know that there is not in the world a more subtle poison than that which is extracted from and administered by books.

  Charlotte Dacre

  Book, World, Subtle

  Charlotte Dacre (1997). “Zofloya”, p.25, Broadview Press

  45 Copy quote

  Show source

• It’s impossible to read The Poison Belt, written in 1913, and not see in its exterminating vision a shadow of the coming war that would, only slightly less effectively, destroy Conan Doyle’s world.

  Gordon Dahlquist

  War, Vision, Shadow

  4 Copy quote

• Hate wears you down and doesn’t hurt your enemy. It’s like taking poison and hoping your enemy will die.

  Mark Frost

  Hurt, Hate, Enemy

  7 Copy quote

• What would happen to a body that was starved, suffocated and then forced to drink poison? It would first suffer and then die an agonizing death. We willingly starve and suffocate our hearts by turning away form the remembrance of God. And then we poison our hearts through the bad company we keep, the garbage that goes into our eyes and ears, and emanates from our tongue...
  And then we wonder why our heart feels dead.

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Eye, Heart, Company We Keep

  12 Copy quote

• What we say in private we must be willing to say with a heart burning with love and honor before the face of our leaders. If not, we will poison our spirits and it will manifest in the presence of our leaders.

  John Bevere

  Heart, Leader, Honor

  21 Copy quote

• The vast majority of psychopaths, like an iceberg, are underwater, and like an iceberg, they are inert. They do nothing. They're just there. They torment their spouse by being unempathic, but they don't beat her or kill her. They bully coworkers, but they don't burn the office. They are not dramatic. They are pernicious. Most psychopaths are subtle. They are more like poison than a knife, and they are more like slow-working poison than cyanide.

  Sam Vaknin

  Knives, Office, Bully

  60 Copy quote

• If parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Family, Racism, Role Models

  Marian Wright Edelman (2013). “The Measure of our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours”, p.47, Beacon Press

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Be kind and honest, and harmful poisons will turn sweet inside you.

  Rumi

  Sweet, Be Kind, Honest

  11 Copy quote