Jury of his peers

"He could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist."

- Henry David Thoreau on John Brown

It was a serpent...

Few creatures excite such a mixture of awe, fear, and fascination as snakes. And few are the subject of so many myths and folk beliefs. One of the oldest is that it was a "snake" in the Garden of Eden which was responsible, in John Milton's words, for bringing "death into the world, and all our woe." But there is no reference to a snake in Genesis; it is, rather, a "serpent" that tempted Eve. Serpents, in antiquity, were not necessarily snakes; any creeping thing, especially if venomous or noxious, was called a serpent. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the term was applied to a variety of creatures, including both salamanders and crocodiles. Admittedly, the temptation of Eve by a crocodile does seem to verge on the ridiculous...

- from The Dictionary of Misinformation, Tom Burnam

The heretical sorcerer

Among the pseudepigrapha connected with the apostle Peter, none is more interesting than the apocryphal Acts of Peter, a document that details Peter's various confrontations with the heretical magician Simon Magus. The narrative shows how Peter outperforms the magician by invoking the power of God. Consider the [...] account in which Peter proves the divine authorization of his message by raising a dead tuna fish back to life.

In the ultimate showdown between the heretical sorcerer (Simon Magus) and the man of God (Peter), Simon the magician uses his powers to leap into the air and fly like a bird over the temples and hills of Rome. Not to be outdone, Peter calls upon God to smite Simon in midair; God complies, much to the magician's dismay and demise. Unprepared for a crash landing, he plunges to the earth and breaks his leg in three places. Seeing what has happened, the crowds rush to stone him to death as an evildoer. And so the true apostle of God triumphs over his enemy, the preacher of heresy.

- From The Bible, Bart D. Ehrman

Thousands of Thoughts

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes."

- Thackeray