Bird Quotes - Page 25

• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• While still in the cage of your being behold the spirit bird before it flies away.

  Rumi

  Cages, Spirit, Fly Away

  Rumi (2012). “Rumi's Little Book of Life: The Garden of the Soul, the Heart, and the Spirit”, p.214, Hampton Roads Publishing

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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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• 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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• The fall of waters and the song of birds,
  And hills that echo to the distant berds,
  Are luxuries excelling all the glare
  The world can boast, and her chief favorites share.

  William Cowper

  Song, Retirement, Fall

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• Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on.

  Robert Southey

  Men, Abuse, Kind

  Robert Southey (1831). “Sir Thomas Marc Or Colloquies on the Progress und Prospects of Sceuly, 1”, p.153

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• Poets are far rarer birds than kings.

  Ben Jonson

  Kings, Poet

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• All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers; hushed are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers.

  Alexander Pope

  Rain, Flower, Sky

  Alexander Pope, Pat Rogers (2008). “The Major Works”, p.5, Oxford University Press

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• Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaic; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: other creature here Beast, bird, insect, or worm durst enter none; Such was their awe of man.

  John Milton

  Men, Rose, Hyacinths

  1665 Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.4, l.698-705.

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• Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say,
  Birds chuse their mates and couple too this day:
  But by their flight I never can devine
  When I shall couple with my valentine.

  Robert Herrick

  Couple, Valentine, Youth

  Robert Herrick, Samuel Weber Singer (1856). “Hesperides: Or, The Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick ...”, p.243

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• It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Greatness, Law, Littles

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans”, p.166

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• The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!

  Francis Quarles

  Death, Men, Air

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.53

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• The only bird that gives the poor a real tumble is the stork.

  Wilson Mizner

  Real, Giving, Birth

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• Few forms of life are so engaging as birds.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Form, Engaging

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow, Pamela R. Matthews (2005). “Perfect Companionship: Ellen Glasgow's Selected Correspondence with Women”, p.232, University of Virginia Press

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• Without just one nest
  A bird can call the world home
  Life is your career

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Life, Home, Careers

  Chuck Palahniuk (2005). “Fight Club: A Novel”, p.64, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind
  To stamp a lasting image of the mind!
  Beasts may convey, and tuneful birds may sing,
  Their mutual feelings, in the opening spring;
  But Man alone has skill and power to send
  The heart's warm dictates to the distant friend;
  'Tis his alone to please, instruct, advise
  Ages remote, and nations yet to rise.

  George Crabbe

  Spring, Heart, Men

  George Crabbe (1858). “The Poetical Works of George Crabbe”, p.60

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• People are like birds - from a distance, beautiful: from close up, those sharp beaks, those beady little eyes.

  Richard J. Needham

  Beautiful, Distance, Eye

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