"Espionage (Roberto was shocked and terrified), the most contagious plague of courts, harpy that swoops down on the royal table with rouged face and hooked claws, flying on batwings and listening with ears endowed with great tympana, an owl that sees only in the dark, a viper among roses, cockroach on flowers converting into venom the juice it sips at its sweetest, spider of antechambers weaving the strands of its subtle talk to catch every passing fly, parrot with curved beak reporting everything it hears, transforming truth into falsehood and falsehood into truth, chameleon that receives every color and dresses in all save the one that is its true garb. All qualities of which anyone would be ashamed, save the one who by divine (or infernal) decree is born to the service of evil."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 29, "The Soul of Ferrante"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Island of the Day Before
22 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Island of the Day Before →
Related Quotes
"Dissimulating means drawing a veil composed of honest shadows, which does not constitute falsehood but allows truth s…"
"Keep calm. You are speaking of love, you are not loving."
"You must know that beneath this foolishness lies a mystery."
"From the way he recalls it on the Daphne, I tend to believe that at Casale, while he lost both his father and himself…"
"If it seems strange that during a week or more on board the ship Roberto had not succeeded in seeing everything, suff…"
"We have said that he had no particular inclination not to believe what the Jesuit was telling him. But often he enjoy…"
"I lack the courage to summarize all of Roberto's summary, so I will only mention the fourth side, which supposedly ex…"
"But an amorous symbol is forgiven many things, and it never ceases to attract poets."
"The dove is there to signify that the world speaks in hieroglyphics, and there is a hieroglyph that itself signifies …"
"Sir," Pozzo said, "be so kind as to make way for us, for we must go and take up our proper position in order to fire …"