Serpent Quotes

• Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.

  William Shakespeare

  Flower, Advice, Lady Macbeth

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 1, sc. 5, l. [63]

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Heart, Mind, Tough

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

  80 Copy quote

  Show source

• Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.

  Alice Hoffman

  Wise, May, Stills

  Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.386, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.

  Voltaire

  Heart, Caress

  Voltaire (2005). “Candide, or, Optimism”, Lane, Allen

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.

  Francis Bacon

  Dragons, Want, Ifs

  30 Copy quote

• Woman is at once apple and serpent.

  Heinrich Heine

  Apples, Definitions

  34 Copy quote

• If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Ambition, Ignorance, Civilization

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.18, Library of Alexandria

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• The little serpent has left, and the great serpent has come.

  Muqtada al Sadr

  Littles, Left

  12 Copy quote

• If a man wishes to become a hero, then the serpent must first become a dragon: otherwise he lacks his proper enemy.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Hero, Men, Dragons

  14 Copy quote

• I am the queen of spades, I am the wasp that stings, I am the dark serpent. I am the invulnerable animal who passes through fire and is not burned.

  Elena Ferrante

  Queens, Dark, Animal

  Elena Ferrante (2005). “The Days of Abandonment”, p.64, Penguin

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Eternity is a circle, a serpent that swallows its own tail.

  Elsa Barker

  Circles, Tails, Eternity

  Elsa Barker (2011). “Letters from the Afterlife: A Guide to the Other Side”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cold as winter, strong as stone; She faced the darkness all alone. A silver goddess; a reflection. A mirage; a recollection. No return; no turning back. The past is gone, the future, black. Serpents gather in their nest, And she stands above the rest. Shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow. The moon is risen; she stands below. She views her world through the eyes of others. Black and white; there are no colors, As she looks down upon a shattered youth. A shattered mirror shows a shattered truth.

  Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Strong, Eye, Black And White

  12 Copy quote

• Sin in a wicked man is like poison in a serpent; it is in its natural place.

  Thomas Brooks

  Men, Wicked, Poison

  13 Copy quote

• O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest - A dammed saint, an honourable villain!

  William Shakespeare

  Beautiful, Heart, Dragons

  8 Copy quote

• A person who suffers bitterly when slighted or insulted should recognize from this that he still harbors the ancient serpent in his breast. If he quietly endures the insult or responds with great humility, he weakens the serpent and lessens its hold. But if he replies acrimoniously or brazenly, he gives it strength to pour its venom into his heart and to feed mercilessly on his guts. In this way the serpent becomes increasingly powerful; it destroys his soul's strength and his attempts to set himself right, compelling him to live for sin and to be completely dead to righteousness.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Powerful, Freedom, Heart

  63 Copy quote

• Kundalini is seen as a serpent that can shoot up the shushumna, past the chakras, opening them all and bringing you into different states of awareness.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Past, Different

  15 Copy quote

• Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

  Mark Twain

  Mistake, Apples, Want

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 2, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Child and serpent, star and stone — all one.

  P. L. Travers

  Stars, Children, Stones

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.175, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• We were ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God .

  Saint Augustine

  Foolishness

  St. Augustine, Saint Augustine, J. F. Shaw (2009). “On Christian Doctrine”, p.10, Courier Corporation

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• He is as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Wise, Inspiration

  9 Copy quote

• ...those serpents! There's no pleasing them!

  Lewis Carroll

  Domestic Violence, Violence, Alice Adventures In Wonderland

  Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland”, W. W. Norton & Company

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order. Death is an act of giving.

  Joseph Campbell

  Life, Death, Order

  15 Copy quote

• A serpent is a serpent, and none the less a viper, because it is nestled in the bosom of an honest-hearted man.

  Martin Delany

  Men, Vipers, Honest

  32 Copy quote

• The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.

  Franz Kafka

  Men, Evil, Literature

  Franz Kafka (1954). “Wedding preparations in the country: and other posthumous prose writings. With notes by Max Brod”

  60 Copy quote

  Show source

• Envy, the meanest of vices, creeps on the ground like a serpent.

  Ovid

  Envy, Vices, Creeps

  12 Copy quote