Serpent And Dove Quotes & Sayings

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

Now I will show myselfTo have more of the serpent than the dove;That is
more knave than fool. — Christopher Marlowe

He is as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove. — Paulo Coelho

If you yield yourself up to His divine working, the Lord will alter your nature; He will subdue the old nature, and breathe new life into you. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and He will give you a heart of flesh. Where everything was hard, everything shall be tender; where everything was vicious, everything shall be virtuous: where everything tended downward, everything shall rise upward with impetuous force. The lion of anger shall give place to the lamb of meekness; the raven of uncleanness shall fly before the dove of purity; the vile serpent of deceit shall be trodden under the heel of truth. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad. — Lev Grossman

Don't blow your tomorrows, don't throw away your love. You've got to be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove. — Gerry Rafferty

I looked at my father and looked at those dry fields [in Malawi]. It was the future I couldn't accept. — William Kamkwamba

I knew people were talking, but I wasn't listening. I wasn't interested in anything anyone had to say. — Michael Thomas Ford

We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In strategy your spiritual bearing must not be any different from normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. — Miyamoto Musashi

Your light is Who You Are. — Ella Barnard

Can we not will ourselves to achieve the impossible? Can we not use the power of our life force to change something: one small thing, one insignificant moment, one breath, one gesture? Is there nothing we can do to change what is around us? — Garth Stein

I'm not interested in being a wife. I'm interested in being an empress. — Fran Lebowitz

In the beginning, said a Persian poet Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgram it was a woman. — William Sharp

(Sadie)"I'm not judging you, Dylan. I love vampire movies. If I looked surprised it was only because it's so different from your TV work, that's all."
His shoulders relaxed a notch. "Sorry. Olly gives me a lot of shit for selling out. He doesn't get that no one is ever going to make his movie about two old men on a fishing trip. Or, even if they do, no one is every going to go see it. — Sarah Mayberry

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

My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all thou sayest, but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy dimunition), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too, a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove that flies.

(Donne, Devotions 1624, as quoted in Fish, How to Write a Sentence p 142) — Stanley Fish

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

When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions. — Joseph Addison

Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove! — Mark Twain

The politician dispenses wealth which other men have produced, and we say he is "compassionate," while the businessman who produces the wealth is dismissed as "greedy" and "materialistic. — R.W. Grant

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle taught us that money should be durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, and value in itself. It should be durable, which is why wheat isn't money; divisible which is why works of art are not money; consistent which is why real estate isn't money; convenient, which is why lead isn't money; value in itself, which is why paper shouldn't be money. Gold answers to all these criteria. — Doug Casey

You look at the steamboat, the railroad, the car, the airplane - not all of these were invented in the Anglo-American world, but they were popularized and extended by it. They were made possible by the financial architecture, the capital intensive operations invented and developed by the Anglo-Americans. — Walter Russell Mead

I have always been fond of Josh Billings's remark that "it is much easier to be a harmless dove than a wise serpent." There are plenty of decent legislators, and plenty of able legislators; but the blamelessness and the fighting edge are not always combined. Both qualities are necessary for the man who is to wage active battle against the powers that prey. — Theodore Roosevelt

Patient acceptance is often considered a weak and passive response to problems that we do not have the power or courage to solve. In reality, however, being patient is far from being passive. There is nothing strong or courageous in reacting to hardship or insults with anger - all we are doing is being defeated by our delusions. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

And again, though we cannot prove, we feel, that we are deathless. We perceive that life is not like those dramas so beloved by the people - in which every villain is punished, and every act of virtue meets with its reward; we learn anew every day that the wisdom of the serpent fares better here than the gentleness of the dove, and that any thief can triumph if he steals enough. If mere worldly utility and expediency were the justification of virtue, it would not be wise to be too good. And yet, knowing all this, having it flung into our faces with brutal repetition, we still feel the command to righteousness, we know that we ought to do the inexpedient good. — Will Durant

There's an old Cheyenne saying about how, when a man is as wise as a serpent, he can afford to be as harmless as a dove. — Larissa Ione