A Quote by William Empson

My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you. — © William Empson
My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you.
One drop of hatred left in the cup of joy turns the most blissful draught into poison.
Do you know why the leaves change colour?... Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there--that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.
For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!
There is no composing draught like the draught through the tube of a pipe.
Retaliation is counter-poison and poison breeds more poison. The nectar of Love alone can destroy the poison of hate.
What if a man save my life with a draught that was prepared to poison me? The providence of the issue does not at all discharge the obliquity of the intent. And the same reason holds good even in religion itself. It is not the incense, or the offering that is acceptable to God, but the purity and devotion of the worshipper.
Remorse is as the heart in which it grows; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is the poison tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison.
And what am I? (Adron) You’re kind and decent. You have a good heart. (Livia) I have no heart at all. What I have is a mechanical substitute that pumps blood through a broken body, and half the time it malfunctions. (Adron)
The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.
It's the world's smallest violin, playing 'My Heart Pumps Purple Piss for You.'
They abandon the Ambrosial Nectar and turn to poison, they earn poison, and poison is their only wealth.
Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.
When a writer develops a story, he is confronted with a poison that is inside him. If you don't have that poison, your story will be boring and uninspired. It's like fugu: The flesh of the pufferfish is extremely tasty, but the roe, the liver, the heart can be lethally toxic.
The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.
Taking the time to meditate is as important as taking the time to breathe. One pumps oxygen into the body, the other pumps peace into the mind.
There is much boasting among the young men about their teams as their horse and carts in Cleveland. Most of the Yorkshire men take as much delight in their ox draught as they used to do in their Horse Draught.
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