Bird Quotes - Page 21

• The bird That glads the night had cheer'd the listening groves with sweet complainings.

  William Somervile

  Sweet, Cheer, Night

  William Somervile (1817). “The Selector. Containing the Poetical Works of Gray, Goldsmith, Falconer & Sommerville: The chase, a poem. By William Somervile, esq. with a sketch of his life”, p.32

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• An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again;The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all.

  John Howard Payne

  Home, Giving, Mind

  John Howard Payne, “Home, Sweet Home”

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• Charlotte Corday walked alone Paris birds sang sugar calls Charlotte walked down lanes of stone through the haze of perfume stalls Charlotte smelt the dead's gangrene Heard the singing guillotine

  Peter Weiss

  Paris, Singing, Stones

  Peter Weiss (1998). “Marat/Sade ; The Investigation ; and The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman”, p.53, A&C Black

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• Everyone thinks I'm a wimp and even my own band hates me. Oh, well. I guess I'll just flip 'em the bird!

  Black Francis

  Hate, Thinking, Wimps

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• All the birds have flown up and gone; A lonely cloud floats leisurely by. We never tire of looking at each other - Only the mountain and I.

  Li Bai

  Lonely, Clouds, Mountain

  Li Po, “Alone Looking At The Mountain”

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• The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parakeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy's face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare Bright pilgrim past our ken, should see Hints of Reality.

  Edith Sitwell

  Dream, Stars, Past

  Edith Sitwell (Dame) (1949). “The canticle of the rose: poems: 1917-1949”

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• Men who stand on any other foundation than the rock Christ Jesus are like birds that build in trees by the side of rivers. The bird sings in the branches, and the river sings below, but all the while the waters are undermining the soil about the roots, till, in some unsuspected hour, the tree falls with a crash into the stream; and then its nest is sunk, its home is gone, and the bird is a wanderer.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Jesus, Fall, Home

  Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.37

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• This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge... It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, White Man, Voice

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.26, BookBaby

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• More hearts are breaking in this world of ours Than one would say. In distant villages And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage Scattered them in their flight, do they take root, And grow in silence, and in silence perish.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Heart, Wind, Roots

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849). “The Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; Complete in One Volume”, p.73

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• Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Dream, Thinking, Brain

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.743, Delphi Classics

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• Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Lonely, Winter, Tree

  1923 Harp-Weaver and Other Poems,'Sonnet19: What lips my lips have kissed'.

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• When one speaks of increasing power, machinery, and industry there comes up a picture of a cold, metallic sort of world in which great factories will drive away the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the green fields. And that then we shall have a world composed of metal machines and human machines. With all of that I do not agree. I think that unless we know more about the machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life, we cannot have the time to enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the flowers, and the green fields.

  Henry Ford

  Flower, Thinking, Green Fields

  Henry Ford, Rose Wilder Lane, Samuel Crowther “The Story of Henry Ford - An American Dream Cone True”, Lulu.com

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• Who in their right mind wouldn't listen to what Larry Bird tells them? He knows what it takes to be a successful player, and he's letting us do the things to have the success.

  Larry Bird

  Successful, Player, Mind

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• Guys like Larry Bird -- he played so hard, he wants everybody else to play hard. That's not unreasonable. Any coach would want that and demand that.

  Larry Bird

  Play Hard, Guy, Demand

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• While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.

  John Dryden

  Lying, Grief, Eye

  John Dryden (1701). “The Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas....: Now First Collected Together, and Corrected from the Roginals”, p.86

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• No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define -- what is a bird.

  Emma Lazarus

  Men, Study, Naturalist

  Emma Lazarus (2015). “The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume I: Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic”, p.215, Courier Corporation

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• I tried to put a bird in a cage. O fool that I am! For the bird was Truth. Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put Truth in a cage!

  William Carlos Williams

  Truth, Fool, Cages

  William Carlos Williams, Christopher John MacGowan, Robert Crockett (2003). “William Carlos Williams”, p.9, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

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• Old age is
  a flight of small
  cheeping birds
  skimming
  bare trees
  above a snow glaze.
  Gaining and failing
  they are buffeted
  by a dark wind -
  But what?
  On harsh weedstalks
  the flock has rested -
  the snow
  is covered
  with broken
  seed husks
  and the wind tempered
  with a shrill
  piping of plenty.

  William Carlos Williams

  Dark, Wind, Snow

  "To Awaken an Old Lady". The Dial, August 1920.

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• A novel it's different. It's kind of exhilarating not to have to cut to the bone constantly. Oh, well I can go over here for a moment. I can say what I think the guy was thinking or what the day looked like or what the bird was doing. If you do that as a playwright, you're dead.

  David Mamet

  Cutting, Thinking, Guy

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• Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?

  Matthew Arnold

  Tree, Dawn, Lawns

  'Parting' (1852) l. 19

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• A bird in the hand may be worth two in the bush, but remember also that a bird in the hand is a positive embarrassment to one not in the poultry business.

  George Ade

  Hands, Two, May

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• The shivering birds beneath the eaves Have sheltered for the night.

  Claude McKay

  Night

  Claude McKay (2012). “Selected Poems”, p.49, Courier Corporation

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• The saddest birds a season find to sing,The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,That men may hope to rise yet fear to fall.

  Robert Southwell

  Fall, Men, Storm

  Saint Robert Southwell (1856). “The poetical works of the Rev. Robert Southwell”, p.47

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• The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free.

  Julian Assange

  Political Will, West, Speech

  "Julian Assange answers your questions". Q&A, www.theguardian.com. December 3, 2010.

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• I avoid the carwash when I think it might rain anytime in the near future, which means I drive around the majority of the time in a pollen and bird poop covered car. This presents a stand off between Neat Freakshow and Practical Pennypincher, and Neat Freak usually triumphs. And then it rains.

  Kristin Armstrong

  Rain, Mean, Thinking

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