Bird Quotes - Page 22

• There in the windy flood of morning Longing lifted its weight from me, Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering, Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

  Sara Teasdale

  Morning, Cheer, Sea

  Sara Teasdale (1915). “Rivers to the Sea”

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• I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.

  Edward Abbey

  Communication, Race, Ideas

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.7, University of Arizona Press

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• What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?

  Countee Cullen

  Strong, Stars, Men

  1925 On These I Stand,'Heritage'.

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• We're vulnerable to repeating history, especially if we don't know what's driving us. For example, it may be a family tradition to marry someone with addiction problems, or who is an injured bird in need of caretaking. Or, you may be drawn to guys who remind you of your distant, unavailable father -- or your ill-tempered mother -- with the unconscious belief that you can take an old story, and through the power of your love, give it a new, happy ending.

  Harriet Lerner

  Mother, Father, Giving

  "The Top 10 Reasons Women Re-Marry The Wrong Guys" by Harriet Lerner, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 7, 2012.

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• It is common talk that every individual is entitled to economic security. The only animals and birds I know that have economic security are those that have been domesticated--and the economic security they have is controlled by the barbed-wire fence, the butcher's knife and the desire of others. They are milked, skinned, egged or eaten up by their protectors.

  Ray Lyman Wilbur

  Animal, Knives, Desire

  "Ray Lyman Wilbur". The Washington Post, June 28, 1949.

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• World's flying like birds; my car's in flight. The city lights are spattered on my windshield like the fragments of the night. And I'm in flight. The sky's a wheel, a merry-go-round of wings and snow and steel, and fire. We'll tread the sky, we'll ride the scarlet horses.

  Tanith Lee

  Horse, Night, Fire

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• I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds, The gray and wintry sides of many glens, And did but half remember human words, In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.

  John Millington Synge

  Stars, Flower, Mountain

  John Millington Synge (2014). “Synge: Complete Plays: In the Shadow of the Glen; Riders to the Sea; The Tinker's Wedding; The Well of the Saints; The Playboy of the Western World; Deirdre of the Sorrows”, p.31, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• When the Sun of compassion arises darkness evaporates and the singing birds come from nowhere.

  Amit Ray

  Compassion, Darkness, Singing

  Amit Ray (2012). “Nonviolence: The Transforming Power”, p.26, INNER LIGHT PUBLISHERS

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• Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings And some are treasured for their markings - They cause the eyes to melt Or the body to shriek without pain.

  Craig Raine

  Pain, Eye, Wings

  Craig Raine (2016). “My Grandmother's Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry”, p.155, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I'd fly. I sit and watch the birds go by and say, I wish I could do that.

  Kristin Kreuk

  Wish, Watches

  "25 Hottest Stars Under 25". Teen People, 2002.

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• These are just the rules and regulations Of the birds, and the bees The earth, and the trees, Not to mention the gods, not to mention the gods.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Tree, Rules And Regulations, Earth

  Song: Rules and Regulations, 2007

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• Nobody has seen the trekking birds take their way towards such warmer spheres as do not exist, or rivers break their course through rocks and plains to run into an ocean which is not to be found. For God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.

  Isak Dinesen

  Running, Ocean, Blessed

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard”, p.10, Vintage

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• We lived in places that we never knew. We could not name the birds perched on our sill, Or see the trees we cut down for our view. What we possessed we always chose to kill. "We claimed the earth but did not hear her claim, And when we died, they laid us on her breast, But she refuses us until we earn Forgiveness from the lives we dispossessed.

  Dana Gioia

  Cutting, Views, Names

  Dana Gioia (2016). “99 Poems: New & Selected”, p.49, Macmillan

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• Every wife ought to answer for her man. If the husband be engaged in a seditious club, or drinks mysterious healths, or be frugal of his candles on a rejoicing night, let her look to him and keep him out of harm's way; or the world will be apt to say, she has a mind to be a widow before her time. She ought, in such cases, to exert the authority of the curtain lecture; and if she finds him of a rebellious disposition, to tame him, as they do birds of prey, by dinning him in the ears all night long.

  Joseph Addison

  Husband, Night, Men

  Joseph Addison, Thomas Tickell (1811). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison: With the Exception of His Numbers of the Spectator”, p.48

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• The bluebird is well named, for he wears a coat of the purest, richest, and most gorgeous blue on back, wings, and tail; no North American bird better deserves the name, for no other flashes before our admiring eyes so much brilliant blue.

  Arthur Cleveland Bent

  Eye, Blue, Names

  Arthur Cleveland Bent (1949). “Life histories of North American thrushes, kinglets, and their allies: order Passeriformes”

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• Well, before writing became all-consuming, I was a quilter, like Hattie and Perilee. I don’t do that anymore, but I do knit, garden and watch the birds in my backyard. I also take lots of walks, do yoga and talk my husband into taking me out to dinner as often as possible.

  Kirby Larson

  Husband, Yoga, Writing

  Hope Is the Word Interview, hopeisthewordblog.com. February 27, 2009.

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• Nature with her wealth of birds and flowers, Has in her heart a place for every weed; For her quick eyes require no microscope To note the varied wonders and delights That the Creator's humblest works possess.

  Kobo Abe

  Weed, Nature, Flower

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• Hark! o'er the dread abyss the sea-bird screams-- The rocks resound--again the lightning gleams!

  John Ramsay

  Rocks, Sea, Lightning

  John Ramsay (1836). “Poems”, p.9

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• Tell me why the caged bird nutters against its prison bars, and I will tell you why the soul sickens of earthliness. The bird has wings, and wings were made to cleave the air, and soar in freedom in the sun. The soul is immortal it cannot feed upon husks.

  Randolph Sinks Foster

  Air, Wings, Soul

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• With Wordsworth, indeed, the light of revelation did not fall upon human beings so unbrokenly as upon the face of the earth. He knew the birds of the countryside better than the old men, and the flowers far better than the children.

  Robert Wilson Lynd

  Children, Flower, Fall

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• Swinburne was an absurd character. He was a bird of showy strut and plumage. One could not but admire his glorious feathers; but, as soon as he began to moult ... one saw how very little body there was underneath.

  Robert Wilson Lynd

  Character, Body, Littles

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• Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile Is mirrored on my dreams, Like evening's sunset-girded isle Upon her shadowed streams: And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats, Like melody of spring-bird, notes; When the blue halcyon gently laves His plumage in the flashing waves.

  Benjamin

  Dream, Spring, Sunset

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• I think my great book is Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song.

  Charles Hartshorne

  Song, Book, Thinking

  "Not The Average Philosopher". Harvard Magazine, Volume 99, Number 5, May/June 1997.

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• Brambles, in particular, protect and nourish young fruit trees, and on farms bramble clumps (blackberry or one of its related cultivars) can be used to exclude deer and cattle from newly set trees. As the trees (apple, quince, plum, citrus, fig) age, and the brambles are shaded out, hoofed animals come to eat fallen fruit, and the mature trees (7 plus years old) are sufficiently hardy to withstand browsing. Our forest ancestors may well have followed some such sequences for orchard evolution, assisted by indigenous birds and mammals.

  Bill Mollison

  Animal, Years, Apples

  "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual". Book by Bill Mollison, 1988.

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• I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance. All sounds of the world carrying on like it always had. So much could change or be lost, and still, the rest of the world went on like it was nothing. It didn't seem wrong, but it didn't seem right either. I'd gone on today like it was nothing. I'd laughed and felt happy and forgotten for a little while that this was now a world without my brother in it.

  Jessi Kirby

  Brother, Distance, Eye

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