Bird Quotes - Page 25

• Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.

  Frances Wright

  Leadership, Men, Way

  Frances Wright (1831). “A Few Days in Athens: Being the Translation of a Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum”, p.112

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• My soul was always so full of aspirations, that a God was a necessity to me. I was like a bird with an instinct of migration upon me, and a country to migrate to was as essential as it is to the bird

  Hannah Whitall Smith

  Country, Soul, Essentials

  Hannah Whitall Smith (1949). “A religious rebel: the letters of "H. W. S." (Mrs. Pearsall Smith)”

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• Flowers belong to Fairyland: the flowers and the birds and the butterflies are all that the world has kept of its golden age--the only perfectly beautiful things on earth--joyous, innocent, half divine--useless, say they who are wiser than God.

  Ouida

  Beautiful, Flower, Butterfly

  Ouida (2016). “Bébée, or Two Little Wooden Shoes”, p.48, Ouida

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• Coerced innocence is like an imprisoned lark,--open the door, and it is off forever. The bird that roams through the sky and the groves unrestrained knows how to dodge the hawk and protect itself; but the caged one, the moment it leaves its bars and bolts behind, is pounced upon by the fowler or the vulture.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Doors, Sky, Forever

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• As flowers carry dewdrops, trembling on the edges of the petals, and ready to fall at the first waft of wind or brush of bird, so the heart should carry its beaded words of thanksgiving; and at the first breath of heavenly flavor, let down the shower, perfumed with the heart's gratitude.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Gratitude, Flower, Fall

  "Life Thoughts, Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by One of His Congregation". Book edited by Edna Dean Proctor, 1859.

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• To wade in marshes and sea margins is the destiny of certain bird, and they are so accurately made for this that they are imprisoned in those places. Each animal out of its habitat would starve. To the physician, each man, each woman, is an amplification of one organ. A soldier, a locksmith, a bank-clerk, and a dancer could not exchange functions. And thus we are victims of adaptation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Animal, Destiny, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (195?). “The works of Ralph Waldo Emerson in one volume: including the poems, philosophic and inspirational essays, and biographical studies”

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• Was never secret history but birds tell it in the bowers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Secret

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847). “Poems”, p.179

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• Foppery, being the chronic condition of women, is not so much noticed as it is when it breaks out on the person of the male bird.

  Honore de Balzac

  Males, Break Out, Persons

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• Still I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing. For I sent the bath towel to the wash this morning, and omitted to put out another. I have no towel.

  Rose Macaulay

  Morning, Lakes, Towels

  Rose Macaulay (2011). “Personal Pleasures”, p.102, A&C Black

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• Showers and sunshine bring,
  Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
  To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
  And one by one the singing-birds come back.

  William C. Bryant

  Spring, Sunshine, Singing

  William Cullen Bryant, “Spring In Town”

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• And in thy own sermon, thou
  That the sparrow falls dost allow,
  It shall not cause me any alarm;
  For neither so comes the bird to harm,
  Seeing our Father, thou hast said,
  Is by the sparrow's dying bed;
  Therefore it is a blessed place,
  And the sparrow in high grace.

  George MacDonald

  Father, Blessed, Fall

  George MacDonald (2015). “THOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE + PAUL FABER, SURGEON + THERE AND BACK - The Complete Series: The Curate's Awakening, The Lady's Confession & The Baron's Apprenticeship”, p.549, e-artnow

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• Do anything but love; or if thou lovest and art a woman, hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship; never let him know how dear he is; flit like a bird before him; lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower; but be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, when caught and caged, be left to pine neglected and perish in forgetfulness.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Love, Art, Flower

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• Man is the plumeless genus of bipeds, birds are the plumed.

  Plato

  Men

  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

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• I count my time by times that I meet thee;
  These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons,
  And nights, these are my old moons and my new moons.
  Slow fly the hours, fast the hours flee,
  If thou art far from or art near to me:
  If thou art far, the bird's tunes are no tunes;
  If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes.

  Richard Watson Gilder

  Time, Art, Moon

  RICHARD WATSON GILDER (1885). “LYRICS AND OTHER POEMS,”

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• Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Skulls, Swim, Paper

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Small Wonder”, p.47, Faber & Faber

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• A bird sings, a child prattles, but it is the same hymn; hymn indistinct, inarticulate, but full of profound meaning.

  Victor Hugo

  Children, Hymns, Profound

  Victor Hugo, Frank Lee Benedict (1874). “Ninety-three”, p.238, Dawson Bros.

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• scarcely a human being in the course of history has fallen to a woman's rifle; the vast majority of birds and beasts have been killed by you, not by us. Obviously there is for you some glory, some necessity, some satisfaction in fighting which we have never felt or enjoyed.

  Virginia Woolf

  Fighting, Satisfaction, Violence

  Virginia Woolf (2014). “Three Guineas (Annotated)”, p.81, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Beautiful, Ambition, Ideas

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.796, Library of America

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• If only I could so live and so serve the world that after me there should never again be birds in cages.

  Isak Dinesen

  Animal, Cages, World

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• The flamingoes are the most delicately colored of all the African birds, pink and red like a flying twig of an oleander bush. They have incredibly long legs and bizarre and recherché curves of their necks and bodies, as if from some exquisite traditional prudery they were making all attitudes and movements in life as difficult as possible.

  Isak Dinesen

  Attitude, Curves, Long

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

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• It was Shakespeare's notion that on this day birds begin to couple; hence probably arose the custom of sending fancy love-billets.

  Washington Irving

  Couple, Fancy, Notion

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• Farre shooting never kild bird.

  George Herbert

  Shooting

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.335

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• Forbeare not sowing because of birds.

  George Herbert

  Sowing

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.348

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• The bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.

  William Cowper

  Wings, Endurance

  William Cowper (1856). “The task, Table talk, and other poems: With critical observations of various authors on his genius and character, and notes, critical and illustrative”, p.334

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• Come, evening, once again, season of peace;
  Return, sweet evening, and continue long!
  Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,
  With matron step, slow moving, while the night
  Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ'd
  In letting fall the curtain of repose
  On bird and beast, the other charged for man
  With sweet oblivion of the cares of day.

  William Cowper

  Sweet, Moving, Fall

  William Cowper, James Montgomery (1859). “Poems ... With an introductory essay by James Montgomery. [With plates.]”, p.215

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