Martin Delany Quotes

He looks like a choirboy and bites like a shark.

Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.

Only the peak feels so sound and stable that the beginning of the falling is hidden for a little while.

Ornament is but the guiled shore to a most dangerous sea.

The admission fee was a viper's tongue and a half-concealed stiletto. It was a sort of intellectual slaughterhouse.

It is the calm and silent waters that drown you.

Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.

Jan built herself an ivory tower to keep the wolves out; she never dreamed they were already inside.

The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster.

Preserve me from such cordiality! It is like handling briar-roses and may-blossoms - bright enough to the eye, and outwardly soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the detriment of your own fingers.

safety and love are both illusions!

Average feels safe but it's not. It's invisible.

A liar is full of oaths.

An honest lie is better than a boring truth.

I always try to just be honest ... As opposed to artifice or manipulation.

Poison. The perfect weapon for a snake.

In my mind, President Snow should be viewed in front of marble pillars hung with oversized flags. It's jarring to see him surrounded by the ordinary objects in the room. Like taking the lid off a pot and finding a fanged viper instead of stew.

There's daggers in men's smiles.

Hate is like a swordfish, working through water invisibly and then you see it coming with blood along its blade, but transparency disarms it.

Pots can show malice, the patterns of linoleum can leer up at you, treachery is the other side of dailiness.

The serpent is helpless unless he finds an apple to work with.

Beware of pretty faces that you find, a pretty face can hide an evil mind.

He who is most on his guard is often himself taken in.

It is possible to live the Christian life just on the surface, knowing only enough to carry on an intelligent conversation in the church foyer with another equally uninformed believer, but when that happens you are vulnerable to the attack of the deceiver.