Plumed Serpent Quotes

I love the word Quetzalcoatl.'
'The word!' he repeated.
His eyes laughed at her teasingly all the time.
'What do you think, Mrs Leslie,' cried the pale-faced young Mirabal, in curiously resonant English, with a French accent. 'Don't you think it would be wonderful if the gods came back to Mexico? our own gods?' He sat in intense expectation, his blue eyes fixed on Kate's face, his soup-spoon suspended.
Kate's face was baffled with incomprehension.
'Not those Aztec horrors!' she said.
'The Aztec horrors! The Aztec horrors! Well, perhaps they were not so horrible after all. But if they were, it was because the Aztecs were all tied up. They were in a cul de sac, so they saw nothing but death. Don't you think so?'
'I don't know enough!' said Kate.
'Nobody knows any more. But if you like the word Quetzalcoatl, don't you think it would be wonderful if he came back again? Ah, the names of the gods! Don't you think the names are like seeds, so full of magic, of the unexplored magic? Huitzilopochtli!--how wonderful! And Tlaloc! Ah! I love them! I say them over and over, like they say Mani padma Om! in Tibet. I believe in the fertility of sound. Itzpapalotl--the Obsidian Butterfly! Itzpapalotl! But say it, and you will see it does good to your soul. Itzpapalotl! Tezcatlipocá! They were old when the Spaniards came, they needed the bath of life again. But now, re-bathed in youth, how wonderful they must be! ~ D.H. Lawrence

I have realized that my will, no matter how intelligent I am, is only another nuisance on the face of the earth, once I start exerting it. And other people's wills are even worse. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Horrors might burst out of them. But something must burst out, sometimes, if men are not machines. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Men today were half-made, and women were half-made. Creatures that existed and functioned with certain regularity, but which ran off into a hopeless jumble of inconsequence.
Half-made, like insects that can run fast and be so busy and suddenly grow wings, but which are only winged grubs after all. A world of half-made creatures on two legs, eating food and degrading the one mystery left to them, sex. Spinning a great lot of words, burying themselves inside the cocoons of words and ideas that they spin round themselves, and inside the cocoons, mostly perishing inert and overwhelmed. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Now, must she admit that he individual was an illusion and a falsification? There was no such animal. Except in the mechanical world. In the world of machines, the individual machine is effectual. The individual, like the perfect being, does not and cannot exist, in the vivid world. We are all fragments. And at the best, halves. The only whole thing is the Morning Star. Which can only rise between two: or between many. ~ D.H. Lawrence

As our sin is ever before us, so God's promise must be ever before us. As we much feel our sting, so we must look up to Christ, our "brazen serpent" (Num 21:8-9). ~ Thomas Watson

I would not for a moment have you suppose that I am one of those idiots who scorns Science, merely because it is always twisting and turning, and sometimes shedding its skin, like the serpent that is [the doctors'] symbol. ~ Robertson Davies

The word absurdity is coming to life under my pen; a little while ago, in the garden, I couldn't find it,
but neither was I looking for it, I didn't need it: I thought without words, on things, with things.
Absurdity was not an idea in my head, or the sound of a voice, only this long serpent dead at my feet,
this wooden serpent. Serpent or claw or root or vulture's talon, what difference does it make. And
without formulating anything clearly, I understood that I had found the key to Existence, the key to my
Nauseas, to my own life. In fact, all that I could grasp beyond that returns to this fundamental
absurdity. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Eve said to the serpent, 'You know I could go for a bit to eat, but I don't know you from Adam.' ~ Red Buttons

Love is this elusive bird," he said. "You're the lifelong bird-watcher, looking for this rare red-plumed quail people spend entire lives trying to see for three seconds in a cherry tree on a mountaintop in Japan."

"You're mistaking love for perfection," I said. "Real love when it's there? It's just there. It's a metal folding chair. ~ Marisha Pessl

I am the Messenger, Gabriel, she who is set over all the powers," I called out. "I evoke thee, Sammael, the Lord of Souls and Fallen angels of death. I am the Will of God and you shall come forth, incubus, the serpent with the lion's face, the Venom of God-"
"That is enough name calling ... I heard you the first time. ~ Courtney Allison Moulton

If the Danes come," he spoke to Wulfhere, "you must let me fight."
"You don't know how to fight."
"Then you must teach me." He slid Serpent-Breath back into the scabbard. "Wessex needs a king who can fight," he said, "instead of pray. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Be a combination of a dove and the serpent; not a monster, but a prodigy. ~ Baltasar Gracian

The eternal opposites meet and kiss. The wolf and the lamb lie down together, the dove and the serpent share one nest. The stars bend down and touch the earth and the young and the old forgive each other. Night and day meet here, so do the poles. The East leans over towards the West and the circle is complete. ~ P.L. Travers

To get what we want we must be subtle as snakes; more deadly, more cunning, more patient, more mean. Think of the serpent, how it slithers through the garden. It's such a beautiful creature, slow and delicate, rarely seen but effective, low, and not loved, but gloriously efficient! The serpent is now our model; we must pattern our work after him. So go to your old friends and stand by their sides. Pretend you want to help them while whispering deceits in their ears. Only lie when you have to. Speak the truth when you can; for the truth, once it's twisted, is the most effective tool we have. Coat your lies with enough truth, and they will swallow it down.

Now listen to me, people, for this is the key - evil can be twisted into virtue if you phrase it just right. Any vice is acceptable if you cloak it as an issue of freedom. Any immorality is worth fighting for it you tell them they are fighting for choice, if you wrap it in the mantle of privacy and freedom. So take their moral agency and turn it on them. But be patient. . . be patient. . . it takes time to turn the truth upside down. ~ Chris Stewart

Our problems started in Dallas, when the fire-breathing sheep destroyed the King Tut exhibit. ~ Rick Riordan

You are the closest I will ever come to heaven, either here on Earth or in the afterlife, and I will not regret it, not even at the cost of your tears.
So I go to my grave an unrepentant sinner, I'm afraid. There is no use in mourning one such as I, dearest ...
-Simon to Lucy in a letter before the last duel. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

In my youth, I was always one for the dramatic entrance. Now, in keeping with my character, I gravitate more toward the subtle and refined. Okay, with the occasional feathered serpent thrown in. ~ Jonathan Stroud

Then stay with me a little longer,' Madame Olenska said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress. ~ Edith Wharton

St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents. ~ Blaise Pascal

When I was young, I asked my priest how to get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God told His children;'You are sheep among wolves, be wise as the serpent, yet innocent as doves. ~ Dennis Lehane

In the Caduceus, the two serpents are called Ob and Od. As they twine around each other, they create the magickal wand of Double Power. The Unification of the Ob and Od is picture by the globe that crowns the Caduceus. The globe which climaxes the Caduceus symbolizes the Nur Muhammadi, or Light of Mohammed, the Aur (Light) in Hebrew, which is the result of the state of equilibrium existing between the two serpent forces. This Light is the SUPREME ESSENCE. Wilhelm Reich called this serpent energy the Orgone. It has also been referred to as: Ki, Kundalini, Mana, Prana, Vril, Animal Magnetism, the Odic Force, the Astral Light, the Élan Vital, the Libido, the Atmospheric 'I' and Ether. ~ Laurence Galian

I lifted my face to meet the kiss, wanting the comfort of his touch as much as I was willing to provide the comfort of mine. The contact was sweet and soft, yet at the same time desperate.

It was Zane who pulled away first. "Danica, I think..." He trailed off and kissed me again, this time briefly, just the barest touch of lips to lips. "I love you."

From a man who frequently uttered eloquent speeches, the tentative declaration was not the most flattering of compliments-especially when every movement he made and look he cast my way had shown the long truth before now.

But coming from the serpent who had once informed me that he did not love me and did not think he ever could, whose cool, polished words could cut to the bone and freeze the Earth's frozen molten blood - whose eyes right now were just a bid dazed, and whose expression was as open and startled as I had ever seen it - the words were more than enough.

"I know," I answered. Then, soft but certain, I answered, "I love you too."

His smile matched mine and said the same as mine: I know. ~ Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Did Maleldil suggest that our own world might have been saved if the elephant had accidentally trodden on the serpent a moment before Eve was about to yield? ~ C.S. Lewis

Wednesday, March 23 I know now that I love Clarimonda. That she has entered into the very fiber of my being. It may be that the loves of other men are different. But does there exist one head, one ear, one hand that is exactly like hundreds of millions of others? There are always differences, and it must be so with love. My love is strange, I know that, but is it any the less lovely because of that? Besides, my love makes me happy.

If only I were not so frightened. Sometimes my terror slumbers and I forget it for a few moments, then it wakes and does not leave me. The fear is like a poor mouse trying to escape the grip of a powerful serpent. Just wait a bit, poor sad terror. Very soon, the serpent love will devour you.

"The Spider ~ Hanns Heinz Ewers

Our minds can go no further. The human imagination is capable of no further expression of beauty than the carved owl of Athene, the archaic, marble serpent, the arrogant selfish head of the Acropolis Apollo. ~ Hilda Doolittle

I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal, and it twists up trouser legs.
("The Return Of Imray") ~ Rudyard Kipling

Right now, I've got the weight of several worlds on my shoulders. My best friend is living in a cancer ward, and there's nothing I can do for him. The Serpents have hired the Jester to spark race riots with faked news stories, and I don't know how to smoke him out. My enemies are hiding all around, watching everything I do, and I can't find them. For the first time in months I find myself in the familiar, paralyzing grip of overwhelming depression. ~ Mark Waid

शान्ताकारं भुजगशयनं पद्मनाभं सुरेशं
विश्वाधारं गगनसदृश्यं मेघवर्णं शुभाङ्गम्।
लक्ष्मीकान्तं कमलनयनं योगिभिर्ध्यानगम्यं
वन्दे विष्णु भवभयहरं सर्वलोकैकनाथम्।

I bow to Vishnu, Master of Universe unquestionably,
Who rests on great serpent bed, peaceful perpetually,
From His navel sprouts Lotus of Creative Power surely,
He the Supreme Lord of cosmos undeniably does be.
- 146 -
He supports the entire universe and all-pervading be,
He dark as clouds with beautiful Lakshmi form glowingly,
He the lotus-eyed, whom yogis see by meditation only,
He destroyer of `Samsar' fear – the Lord of all `loks' be.
- 147 - ~ Munindra Misra

Presently a serpent sought them out privately, and came to them walking upright, which was the way of serpents in those days. The serpent said the forbidden fruit would store their vacant minds with knowledge. So they ate it, which was quite natural, for man is so made that he eagerly wants to know; whereas the priest, like God, whose imitator and representative he is, has made it his business from the beginning to keep him from knowing any useful thing. ~ Mark Twain

I could not help weeping with him - not over my own fate which, however clearly laid out, was just as sad as his, but over the injustices, the iniquities, and the crimes to which the exploited poor are always and everywhere subjected to, by a mob of scoundrels and trash who deck themselves out in many-colored robes, in helmet and plumed hats, in gold and silver embroideries, and take themselves titles of majesty, holiness, eminence, lordship, in order to fleece, bleed, and slaughter the poor. ~ Jean-Marie Deguignet

A long, white banner spread out, lifting on the air. Rand could only stare. The whole thing seemed of a piece, neither woven, nor dyed, nor painted. A figure like a serpent, scaled in scarlet and gold, ran the entire length, but it had scaled legs, and feet with five long, golden claws on each, and a great head with a golden mane and eyes like the sun. The stirring of the banner made it seem to move, scales glittering like precious metals and gems, alive, and he almost thought he could hear it roar defiance. ~ Robert Jordan

I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). Sin is the move away from simple devotion to Christ. Sin is spiritual complexity. ~ Tony Reinke

In many parts of the world, you will find people of the
same ethnic group, living a few miles apart in similar valleys under similar
conditions, speaking languages that have absolutely nothing in common with each
other. This sort of thing is not an oddity -- it is ubiquitous. Many linguists
have tried to understand Babel, the question of why human language tends to
fragment, rather than converging on a common tongue?" "Has anyone come up with
an answer yet?"
"The question is difficult and profound," the Librarian says. "Lagos had a
theory."
"Yes?"
"He believed that Babel was an actual historical event. That it happened in a
particular time and place, coinciding with the disappearance of the Sumerian
language. That prior to Babel Infopocalypse, languages tended to converge. And
that afterward, languages have always had an innate tendency to diverge and
become mutually incomprehensible -- that this tendency is, as he put it, coiled
like a serpent around the human brainstem."
"The only thing that could explain that is --" Hiro stops, not wanting to say
it.
"Yes?" the Librarian says.
"If there was some phenomenon that moved through the population, altering their
minds in such a way that they couldn't process the Sumerian language anymore.
Kind of in the same way that a virus moves from one computer to another,
damaging each computer in the same way. Coiling around the bra ~ Neal Stephenson

Bessie?" I looked down at the bull serpent. "But ... he's too cute. He couldn't destroy the world."
-Percy Jackson ~ Rick Riordan

The taste of blood and that annoying sting of a bitten tongue. Once man got the taste of blood there was no going back, like a serpent circling itself eating its own tail. ~ Brandon Garic Notch

Hell. I was like the serpent shoving the apple at Eve. Or rather the banana... ~ Elle Kennedy

Our marriage began
with knots and fangs;
vows inked on skin.
Black venom stained
our fingers, twinned
snakes strangling
the marriage vein
in Celtic macramé –
cocksure monogamy.

We became one,
me and the gun,
the serpent reeling
itself from the needle.
I had few firsts left;
marriage a wild west
for the hedonist.

Snakes unspooled
like figure-eights,
symbols of eternity.
Acrimony, alimony;
Leave the moaning
to adults. We children
will be wiser
wed, inoculated –
these hickeys,
homeopathy. ~ Jalina Mhyana

I realised that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism to a real monogamous marriage. "I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows," is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realised the necessity of definite action. "But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow?" Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. ~ Alexander Pope

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

While for most Christians, humans were expelled from paradise because they literally ate from the tree of life, due to the influence of a serpent, the Gnostics know that the tree of life is the human body, the serpent is the kundalini energy, which tempted humans through sexual desire, and sex was the prohibited fruit. ~ Daniel Marques

Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. ~ Robert Browning

The fiend had the head of a wolf, but the skin was scaly and serpent-like and the eyes bore an intelligence that far exceeded a wolf's. ~ Noor Al-Shanti

Quetzalcoatl is a primal idea of the duality of human nature. The serpent is the embodiment of Heaven and Earth. It scares people in many ways. ~ Robert Graham

As we rode slowly through the battle camp, the sounds and smells of war overwhelmed my senses: horses stamping and sweating in anticipation; men shouting; the steady rhythm of metal grinding on stone; leather snapping and buckling, and woo
d crackling in flame. The simmering energy of warriors as they eagerly awaited battle slithered through the camp like an invisible serpent ~ Virginia Chandler

I sit here before my computer, Amiguita, my altar on top of the monitor with the Virgen de Coatlalopeuh candle and copal incense burning. My companion, a wooden serpent staff with feathers, is to my right while I ponder the ways metaphor and symbol concretize the spirit and etherealize the body. The Writing is my whole life, it is my obsession. This vampire which is my talent does not suffer other suitors. Daily I court it, offer my neck to its teeth. This is the sacrifice that the act of creation requires, a blood sacrifice. For only through the body, through the pulling of flesh, can the human soul be transformed. And for images, words, stories to have this transformative power, they must arise from the human body
flesh and bone
and from the Earth's body
stone, sky, liquid, soil. This work, these images, piercing tongue or ear lobes with cactus needle, are my offerings, are my Aztecan blood sacrifices. ~ Gloria E Anzaldua