First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"... Never threaten with your eyes! They are no cockatrices."
"O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too; [Gives the ring] It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on't."
"Be thou like the imperial basilisk, Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds! Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk, Aghast she pass from the earth’s disk. Fear not, but gaze,—for freemen mightier grow, And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe."
"Where no sun shines through the live-long day, Because of the blue-wreathed mist, Where the cockatrice creeps her foul egg to lay, And the speckled snake has hissed:"
"Man may escape from Rope and Gun; Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill; Who takes a Woman must be undone, That Basilisk is sure to kill."
"O ill-dispersing wind of misery! O my accursed womb, the bed of death! A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world, Whose unavoided eye is murderous."
"Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent."
"“Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel,” said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, “because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage.”"
"For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD."
"Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that’s evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more;"
"Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'Ay,' And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice."
"But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks, And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on Hippogriffs."
"Too late, the clang of adamantine gongs, Dinned by their drowsy guardians, whose feet Have felt the wasp-like sting of little knives, Embrued with slobber of the basilisk, Or juice of wounded upas."
"Here with a cockatrice’ dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the gripe’s sharp claws, Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite."
"And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den."
"The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk, and speckled snake; Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey, And, with their forked tongue, shall innocently play."
"Three sorts of serpents do resemble thee: That dangerous eye-killing cockatrice, The enchanting siren, which doth so entice, The weeping crocodile—these vile pernicious three."
"And the King said, “Behold and see, that which sprung from the egg of a cock, hatched by the deaf adder. The glance of its eye sufficeth to turn to stone any living thing that standeth before it. Were I but for one instant to loose my spells whereby I hold it in subjection, in that moment would end my life days and thine. So strong in properties of ill is this serpent which the ancient Enemy that dwelleth in darkness hath placed upon this earth, to be a bane unto the children of men, but an instrument of might in the hand of enchanters and sorcerers.”Therewith came forth that offspring of perdition from its hole, strutting erect on its two legs that were the legs of a cock; and a cock’s head it had, with rosy comb and wattles, but the face of it like no fowl’s face of middle-earth but rather a gorgon’s out of Hell. Black shining feathers grew on its neck, but the body of it was the body of a dragon with scales that glittered in the rays of the candles, and a scaly crest stood on its back; and its wings were like bats’ wings, and its tail the tail of an aspick with a sting in the end thereof, and from its beak its forked tongue flickered venomously. And the stature of the thing was a little above a cubit. Now because of the spells of King Gorice whereby he held it ensorcelled it might not cast its baneful glance upon him, nor upon Gro, but it walked back and forth in the candle light, averting its eyes from them. The feathers on its neck were fluffed up with anger and wondrous swiftly twirled its scaly tail, and it hissed ever more fiercely, irked by the bonds of the King’s enchantment; and the breath of it was noisome, and hung in sluggish wreaths about the chamber. So for a while it walked before them, and as it looked sidelong past him Gro beheld the light of its eyes that were as sick moons burning poisonously through a mist of greenish yellow in the dusk of night. And strong loathing seized him, so that his gorge rose to behold the thing, and his brow and the palms of his hands became clammy, and he said, “My Lord the King, I have looked steadfastly on this cockatrice and it affrighteth me no whit, but it is loathly in my sight, so that my gorge riseth because of it,” and with that he fell a-vomiting. And the King commanded that serpent back into its hole, whither it returned, hissing wrathfully."
"I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk;"
"As Zadig was traversing a verdant Meadow, he perceiv'd several young Female Syrians, intent on searching for something very curious, that lay conceal'd, as they imagin'd, in the Grass. He took the Freedom to approach one of them, and ask her, in the most courteous Manner, if he might have the Honour to assist her in her Researches. Have a care, said she. What we are hunting after, Sir, is an Animal, that will not suffer itself to be touch'd by a Man. 'Tis somewhat surprizing, said Zadig. May I be so bold, pray, as to ask you what you are in Pursuit after, that shuns the Touch of any Thing but the Hands of the Fair Sex. 'Tis, Sir, said she, the Basilisk: A Basilisk, Madam, said he! And pray, if you will be so good as to inform me, with what View, are you searching after a Creature so very difficult to be met with? 'Tis, Sir, said she, for our Lord and Master Ogul, whose Castle, you see, situate on the River-side, at the Bottom of the Meadow. We are all his Vassals. Ogul, you must know, is in a very bad State of Health, and his first Physician has order'd him, as a Specific, to eat a Basilisk, boil'd in Rose water: And as that Animal is very hard to be catch'd, and will suffer nothing to approach it, but one of our Sex, our dying Sovereign Ogul has promis'd to honour her, that shall be so happy as to catch it for him, so far as to make her his Consort. The Case, being thus circumstantiated, Sir, I hope you will not interrupt me any longer, lest my Rivals here in the Field should happen to circumvent me.Zadig withdrew, and left the Syrian Ladies in Quest of their imaginary Booty, in order to pursue his intended Journey."
"And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den."
"They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper."
"Minos frowned frightfully. "I resume," he said. "You have said that it is false that the basilisk is the king of serpents, under the name of cockatrice.""Very reverend sir," said Ursus, "so little did I desire to insult the basilisk that I have given out as certain that it has a man's head.""Be it so," replied Minos, severely; "but you added that Poerius had seen one with the head of a falcon. Can you prove it?""Not easily," said Ursus.Here he had lost a little ground."
"Those deserts of immeasurable sand, Whose age-collected fervours scarce allowed A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring, Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard’s love Broke on the sultry silentness alone, Now teem with countless rills and shady woods, Cornfields and pastures and white cottages; And where the startled wilderness beheld A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood, A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs, Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang,— Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles To see a babe before his mother’s door, Sharing his morning’s meal With the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick his feet."
"For see, my friend goes shaking and white; He eyes me as the basilisk: I have turned, it appears, his day to night, Eclipsing his sun's disk."
"Wherever you see or hear a Jew teaching, do not think otherwise than that you are hearing a poisonous Basiliskus who with his face poisons and kills people."
"A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workman had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead."
"The basilisk serpent also has the same power [as the catoblepas]. It is a native of the province of Cyrenaica, not more than twelve inches long, and adorned with a bright white marking on the head like a sort of diadem. It routs all snakes with its hiss, and does not move its body forward in manifold coils like the other snakes but advancing with its middle raised high. It kills bushes not only by its touch but also by its breath, scorches up grass and bursts rocks. Its effect on other animals is disastrous: it is believed that once one was killed with a spear by a man on horseback and the infection rising through the spear killed not only the rider but also the horse. Yet to a creature so marvellous as this – indeed kings have often wished to see a specimen when safely dead – the venom of weasels is fatal: so fixed is the decree of nature that nothing shall be without its match. They throw the basilisks into weasels' holes, which are easily known by the foulness of the ground, and the weasels kill them by their stench and die themselves at the same time, and nature's battle is accomplished."
"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it."
"See how she rears her head, And rolls about her dreadful eyes, To drive all virtue out, or look it dead! 'Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence ..."
"The basilisk his nature takes from thee, Who for my life in secret wait dost lie, And to my heart sendst poison from thine eye: Thus do I feel the pain, the cause, yet cannot see."
"Gloucester: Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. Lady Anne: Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!"
"Fenrir shall with impious tooth Slay the sire of rolling years: Vithar shall avenge his fall, And, struggling with the shaggy wolf, Shall cleave his cold and gory jaw."
"One can say that one has not seen a frightening sight if one has not been able to see how Thor pierced the serpent with his eyes and how the serpent stared back at him from below and spat venom."
"Midgardsormen, the world serpent, will leap out of the ocean, raising the tides and submerging the land. The wolf, giant Fenrir, will break his invisible chains. [...] Thor will kill the serpent, but will die from its poison. (Vikings)"
"The great sea is held together by Jörmungand, the serpent who surrounds it with his gigantic body and who holds his tail in his mouth to complete the circle, and thus stops the waves from forming. One day, the god Thor, son of the earth, was fishing in the serpent sea, using an ox's head as bait. Jörmungand reared up, and the waves hit the shores as he twisted and writhed like a fury. They were equally strong, the serpent and the god in that furious struggle. The sea boiled around them, but then the hook was removed and the snake slithered free and quickly sank beneath the waves again. And soon the sea was calm again as if nothing had disturbed it. (Vikings)"
"And the serpent sank into the sea. Thor threw the hammer after him, and some say he cut off his head at the bottom, but I think I must tell you truly that the serpent of MiĂ°garĂ°r still lives and lies in the ocean."
"Then the ocean will roll over the lands, because the serpent MiĂ°garĂ°r will be seized by the fury of the giants and will reach the land. [...] MiĂ°garĂ°r's serpent will breathe so much poison that it will splash all the air and water, and it will be really scary, and it will stand by the wolf's side."
"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well."
"Do I see crowds of men hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes—but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpfulness, human sympathy, the common bond of brotherhood, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters."
"Life is a magic garden. With wondrous softly shining flowers, but between the flowers there are the little gnomes, they frighten me so much, they stand on their heads, and the worst is, they call out to me that I should also stand on my head, every once in a while I try, and I die of embarrassment; but sometimes the gnomes shout that I am doing very well, and that I'm indeed a real gnome myself after all. But on no account I will ever fall for that."
"Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; The gnomes direct, to every atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust, Sudden, with starting tears each eye o'erflows, And the high dome re-echoes to his nose."
"GNOME, n.In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as 1764."
"When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen."
"He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amok in Kent. Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair. You better stay away from him! He'll rip your lungs out, Jim! Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor."
"I'm going to repay you for betraying me; I'm going to give that brain of yours a new home in the skull of the Frankenstein monster. As for you Strauss, I'm going to give you the brain of the wolfman so that all your waking hours will be spent in untold agony awaiting the full of the moon... which will change you into a werewolf."
"I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's! His hair was perfect."
"The silhouette was named for Etienne de Silhouette, the notoriously stingy finance minister for Louis XV, who ironically was himself incapable of casting a shadow, due to lycanthropy."
"Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran.""