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Reptiles Quotes

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Reptiles Quotes

“I had no idea what humans were capable of. I heard they were crafty, but how are they able to do such things? You mean harness light and water? Speedy asked. Change the weather? Yes. It's only the beginning, Speedy said. There are more marvels waiting. Some not so marvelous. Such as? Be not in haste, said the tortoise. There is nothing here but time. If you live long enough, you will see. Of course, though, you will see them from your cage. Live long enough? I asked. Are there mortal dangers here? The tortoise chuckled. The boy doesn't always take very good care of his prisoners, Rex the lizard chimed in. What do you mean? He doesn't feed us enough? Sometimes he doesn't understand what we need to survive, Rex answered. Sometimes he plays too rough. How can a creature able to bend the laws of nature be so cruel? I asked.”

HumansPowerEthicsPetsReptilesSnakeLizardTortoise
Book:We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes
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“That’s when he finds them. Birds. Mammals. Reptiles. That one was George—a Cheetah with the most flaming fur. That one was Gogy—a gorilla with the clearest pair of eyes. That one was Ms. Mimbo—a hybrid of Macao and African Grey Parrot. And the one near the stone was … well, the Monk goes through around three dozen names. It took fifty years of careful watch to make sure they don’t go extinct. If you live long enough, you might, as well, end up befriending every life your neighboring forest holds. And if you are a war hero, you might even get professionals from the Wildlife Conservation Board to help you during their crossbreeding process. But they’re all dead.”

BirdsMammalsReptilesThe Monk
Book:The High Auction
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“I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able to make [it] out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture.”

ArchitectureManWomanAdam And EveGarden Of EdenExperimentReptiles
Author:Mark Twain
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“...Everything that’s not asexual has two sexes, male and female. Most of the time it takes one of each to reproduce. Then there’s the whiptail lizard. This is a lizard that lives way the fuck out there in the middle of the desert, and sometimes it’s hard to find another lizard to mate with out there. Therefore, what the female whiptail can do is sort of make her eggs start dividing on their own. She makes daughters, clones of herself. It’s called parthenogenesis.”

NatureAnimalsReproductionLizardsReptilesParthenogenesis
Book:Cut
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“Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.”

StillsLastsWaterFireHolyAccountsImmortalBucketsReptilesHoly WaterSalamanders
Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World
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“I can no more explain why I like "natural history" than why I like California canned peaches; nor why I do not care for that enormous brand of natural history which deals with invertebrates any more than why I do not care for brandied peaches. All I can say is that almost as soon as I began to read at all I began to like to read about the natural history of beasts and birds and the more formidable or interesting reptiles and fishes.”

I CanCareNaturalAnimalInterestingDealsBirdFishesEnormousBrandsCaliforniaBeastFormidablePeachesNatural HistoryReptilesInvertebrates
Book:Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
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“I like to walk, touch living Mother Earth—bare feet best, and thrill every step. Used to envy happy reptiles that had advantage of so much body in contact with earth, bosom to bosom. [We] live with our heels as well as head and most of our pleasure comes in that way.”

WayWellsBodyEarthUsedMotherWalksPleasureStepsFeetWalkingAdvantageEnvyContactHeelsThrillBosomsMother EarthEvery StepReptilesBare Feet
Book:To Yosemite and Beyond: Writings from the Years 1863-1875
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“What greater weakness can there be than not to know what is the source of one's being, of one's life, of one's senses, of one's knowledge, and what is to be their end? What can be more deeply disheartening than to wonder whether one's soul is, perhaps, a material thing, like a stone or a reptile, corruptible like these base creatures? Is there not more strength and greatness of mind in admitting the idea of a being superior to all other beings, who has made them all and to whom all owe their existence; of a being supremely perfect, who is pure, who had no beginning and can have no ending, of whom our soul is the image and, so to speak, a portion, being a spiritual and immortal thing?”

IfsMenMindMayDoeMadeIdeasSoulEndsAbleSpiritualPerfectDoubtSubjectsMaterialsPureProveCreaturesAll ThingsStonesCorruptionSuperiorsImmortalDiscouragingGrandeurStrength Of MindReptiles
Author:Jean de la Bruyere
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“But for that blindness which is inseparable from malice, what terrible powers of evil would it possess! Fortunately for the world, its venom, like that of the rattlesnake, when most poisonous, clouds the eye of the reptile, and defeats its aim.”

WorldEyeEvilTerribleAimDefeatCloudsBlindnessMaliceInseparablePoisonousVenomReptilesRattlesnakes
Book:Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside
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“Books, of which the principles are diseased or deformed, must be kept on the shelf of the scholar, as the man of science preserves monsters in glasses. They belong to the study of the mind's morbid anatomy, and ought to be accurately labelled. Voltaire will still be a wit, notwithstanding he is a scoffer; and we may admire the brilliant spots and eyes of the viper, if we acknowledge its venom and call it a reptile.”

IfsMenMindMayStillsBookEyePrinciplesStudyHe ManOughtGlassesBrilliantWitMonstersAdmireSpotsPreservesAcknowledgeScholarShelvesAnatomyMorbidDiseasedVenomReptilesVipersScoffers
Author:Robert Aris Willmott
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“Old people who live too long come to resemble turtles. As though time turned in a curve, and down they go to the reptiles again. Not the little wet naked frog they were born. But the tortoise. Cold eyes, sagging circles of skin, the nose becomes beak. The shell of sleep.”

PeopleLittlesLongEyeAgeBornSleepColdSkinsCirclesNakedOld AgeNosesWetShellsCurvesOld PeopleFrogsTurtlesReptilesTortoisesBeaksSaggingCold Eyes
Book:The Inland Island
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“The minds of stone lovers had colonised stones as lichens clung to them with golden or grey-green florid stains. The human world of stones is caught in organic metaphors like flies in amber. Words came from flesh and hair and plants. Reniform, mammilated, botryoidal, dendrite, haematite. Carnelian is from carnal, from flesh. Serpentine and lizardite are stone reptiles ; phyllite is leafy-green.”

WorldMindHumansHairLoversStonesGreenPlantMetaphorCaughtFleshGoldenGreyStainsAmberReptiles
Book:A Stone Woman (Storycuts)
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“When you look at Earth from that one picture, the one from space, it's really a rather attractive thing. I have nothing against the planet per se. I root for the big comet or asteroid as a way of cleansing the planet. The comet or asteroid 65 million years ago is probably what gave us our opening to replace the reptiles. The greatest entertainment I have in my life is chronicling internally, not necessarily for the public, the slow dissolution of order.”

WayYearsLooksBigsEarthLife IsOrderSpaceMillionsPlanetsYears AgoRootsEntertainmentOpeningAttractiveCleansingDissolutionCometsAsteroidsReptilesAttractive Things
Author:George Carlin
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“The reptiles had taken over the city. Once again they were the dominant form of life. Looking up at the ancient impassive faces, Kerans could understand the curious fear they roused, rekindling archaic memories of the terrifying jungles of the Paleocene, when the reptiles had gone down before the emergent mammals, and sense the implacable hatred one zoological class feels towards another that usurps it.”

FeelsFacesFormMemoriesAnimalCitiesClassGoneTakenHatredAncientCuriousDominantJungleMammalsReptiles
Book:The Drowned World and the Wind From Nowhere
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“So there you have it: Nature is a rotten mess. But that's only the beginning. If you take your eyes off it for one second, it will kill you. Thorns, insects, fungus, worms, birds, reptiles, wild animals, raging rivers, bottomless ravines, dry deserts, snow, quicksand, tumbleweeds, sap, and mud. Rot, poison and death. That's Nature.It's a wonder you even step outside of your cabin, I said.My bravery exceeds my good sense, he said.”

IfsSaidEyeAnimalWonderStepsBirdRiversBraveryRageSnowMessDesertPoisonDryMudWormsInsectsExceedRottenThornsGood SenseSapWild AnimalCabinsReptilesFungiQuicksandTumbleweeds
Book:Mr. Monk in Trouble
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“One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.”

GivingLooksLongEnoughAbleStarsUnderstandingTreeRocksFieldsPoetBirdGuidesTinyButterflyMammalsBest GiftWildflowersReptilesAmphibians
Author:Marge Piercy
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“There is not a moral to every story in animal behavior. Sometimes a snake is just a snake, and sometimes snake sex is only about sex in snakes, or sex in egg-laying reptiles. Although a biologist's job in part is to interpret what organisms do in a broader context, that context does not, and should not, need to include a lesson for human beings. This is true regardless of whether the lesson is something we would like to teach, which means that using animals as vehicles for nonsexist thinking is just as out of bounds as using them to keep women barefoot and pregnant.”

ThinkingNeedsShouldHumansMeanDoeSometimesStoriesJobsSexHuman BeingsAnimalMoralTeachLessonsBehaviorBoundsEggsVehiclePregnantOrganismsSnakesBiologistBarefootReptilesAnimal Behavior
Author:Marlene Zuk
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“Society's only real 'progressives' are the deviants and mutants. Look at evolution - fish who didn't deviate never became amphibians; frogs who didn't mutate never became reptiles; conformist snakes never became mammals , etc. Normal Humans will remain humans, and they'll be subjugated by the digital monsters of the next few millenia.”

HumansLooksRealNextEvolutionNormalFishesMonstersEtcDigitalSnakesFrogsMammalsConformistDeviateReptilesMutantsDeviantsAmphibians
Author:Jim Goad
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