Bird Quotes - Page 15

• Everyone needs time to develop their dreams. An egg in the nest doesn't become a bird overnight.

  Lois Ehlert

  Dream, Eggs, Needs

  Lois Ehlert (2014). “The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of course, living in an all-glass house has its disadvantages...but you should see the birds smack it.

  Gary Larson

  Glasses, House, Should

  Gary Larson (1984). “The Far Side Gallery”, Andrews McMeel Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

  Paul Laurence Dunbar

  Feels, Alas, Caged

  Paul Laurence Dunbar (2012). “Selected Poems”, p.28, Courier Corporation

  47 Copy quote

  Show source

• I suppose I am a sparrow, a stay-at-home bird.

  Gladys Taber

  Home, Sparrows, Stay At Home

  Gladys Bagg Taber, Barbara Webster (1953). “Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The twilight is sad and cloudy, The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sea-birds Flash the white caps of the sea.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Twilight, Blow, Wind

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1871). “The Poetical Works”, p.131

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The gloom encroaches upon my mind, and my heart flutters like a bird held fast in a fist.

  Hannah Kent

  Heart, Mind, Fists

  Hannah Kent (2013). “Burial Rites”, p.110, Pan Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• the bird sings as if to say that delight is easy, for those who desire it

  Philippa Gregory

  Desire, Delight, Easy

  Philippa Gregory (2013). “The White Queen”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Writing, Feelings, Paper

  Ambrose Bierce, Brian St. Pierre (1987). “The Devil's advocate: an Ambrose Bierce reader”, Chronicle Books (CA)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• At heart I am a librarian, a bird-watcher, a transcendentalist, a gardener, a spinster, a monk.

  Juliana Hatfield

  Heart, Monk, Librarian

  4 Copy quote

• The birds are silent in the woods. / Just wait: soon enough / You will be quiet too

  Robert Hass

  Soon Enough, Waiting, Woods

  13 Copy quote

• A bird maintains itself in the air by imperceptible balancing, when near to the mountains or lofty ocean crags; it does this by means of the curves of the winds which as they strike against these projections, being forced to preserve their first impetus bend their straight course towards the sky with divers revolutions, at the beginning of which the birds come to a stop with their wings open, receiving underneath themselves the continual buffetings of the reflex courses of the winds.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Ocean, Mean, Science

  5 Copy quote

• I had no more alphabet than the journeying of the swallows, the pure and tiny water of the small, fiery bird that dances rising from the pollen.

  Pablo Neruda

  Water, Rising, Alphabet

  10 Copy quote

• Fortunately, however, birds don't understand pep talks. Not even St. Francis'. Just imagine, he went on, preaching sermons to perfectly good thrushes and goldfinches and chiff-chaffs! What presumption! Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut and let the birds preach to him?

  Aldous Huxley

  Perfectly Good, Mouths, Imagine

  Aldous Huxley (2010). “Island”, p.18, Harper Collins

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Life, Airplane, Science

  The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (translation by Edward MacCurdy)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Debt is to man what the serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil crushes sinew and bone, its jaw is the pitiless grave.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Crush, Eye, Men

  5 Copy quote

• Far and away the most futile admonition Christ ever offered was when he said, 'Have no care for tomorrow. Don't worry about whether you're going to have something to eat. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but God takes perfect care of them. Don't you think he'll do the same for you?' In our culture the overwhelming answer to that question is, 'Hell no!' Even the most dedicated monastics saw to their sowing and reaping and gathering into barns.

  Daniel Quinn

  Thinking, Air, Perfect

  6 Copy quote

• We want to know what our self is. We are the sky. Our thoughts are the birds that come and go. You can enjoy the birds and their beauty, but it is the sky that lasts.

  Frederick Lenz

  Self, Sky, Want

  5 Copy quote

• If you dissect a bird / to diagram the tongue, / you'll cut the chord / articulating song.

  Sylvia Plath

  Song, Cutting, Tongue

  Sylvia Plath (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.285, Faber & Faber

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a very great fear of love. It is so personal. Let each bird fly with its own wings, and each fish swim its own course.--Morning brings more than love. And I want to be true to the morning.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Love, Morning, Swimming

  D. H. Lawrence (1995). “The Plumed Serpent”, p.372, Wordsworth Editions

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• People ask me, "Are you right wing or are you left wing?" and I always say, "I'm for the whole bird." A one-winged bird didn't ever get off the ground.

  Rick Warren

  Wings, People, Ask Me

  "Rick & Kay Warren Extended Interview". Interview with Kim Lawton, www.pbs.org. September 01, 2006.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a very small object to be capable of doing many wonderful things, don't you think?" "It does much more that that," Valkyrie said, opening up a game and showing it to him. His eyes widened. "What wonder is this?" "It's called Angry Birds. Now do you believe me?

  Derek Landy

  Believe, Eye, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• There is continual spring, and harvest there Continual, both meeting at one time: For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear, And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, And eke attonce the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruits load: The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet above, And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad.

  Edmund Spenser

  Sweet, Time, Spring

  1590 Of the Garden of Adonis. The Faerie Queen, bk.3, canto 6, stanza 42.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Opportunity is a bird that never perches.

  Claude Maxwell MacDonald

  Opportunity, Missed Opportunity, Life Opportunity

  11 Copy quote

• As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Aviation, Flight

  5 Copy quote

• Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
  Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
  Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.
  Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

  Thomas Nash

  Sweet, Kings, Spring

  Thomas Nash (1964). “Pierce Penniless his supplication to the Devil: Summer's last will and testament. The terrors of the night. The unfortunate traveller, and selected writings”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source