Caterpillars Quotes

• There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Inspirational, Change, Success

  149 Copy quote

• God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls and coal into diamonds using time and pressure. He's working on you, too.

  Rick Warren

  I Hate You, Butterfly, Anxiety

  199 Copy quote

• What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

  Richard Bach

  Inspirational, Change, Inspiring

  "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah". Book by Richard Bach, 1977.

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• The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.

  George Carlin

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  "Why My Journey Of Grief Is So Like A Butterfly’s Metamorphosis" by Laurie Burrows Grad, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 4, 2016.

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• All human beings have the ability to transform like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon and taking to the sky.

  Jim Rohn

  Sky, Cocoons, Ability

  16 Copy quote

• Around us, life bursts with miracles, a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops.

  Nhat Hanh

  Laughter, Flower, Healing

  Thich Nhat Hanh “Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings”, Orbis Books

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• The great loneliness- like the loneliness a caterpillar endures when she wraps herself in a silky shroud and begins the long transformation from chrysalis to butterfly. It seems we too must go through such a time, when life as we have known it is over- when being a caterpillar feels somehow false and yet we don’t know who we are supposed to become. All we know is that something bigger is calling us to change. And though we must make the journey alone, and even if suffering is our only companion, soon enough we will become a butterfly, soon enough we will taste the rapture of being alive.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Life, Change, Loneliness

  61 Copy quote

• Keep your temper, said the Caterpillar.

  Lewis Carroll

  Said, Temper, Alice Adventures In Wonderland

  Lewis Carroll (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (Illustrated)”, p.97, Delphi Classics

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• The Very Hungry Caterpillar” story is about hope. You, like the little caterpillar, will grow up, unfold your wings and fly off into the future

  Eric Carle

  Growing Up, Wings, Stories

  99 Copy quote

• True transformation occurs only when we can look at ourselves squarely and face our attachments and inner demons, free from the buzz of commercial distraction and false social realities. We have to retreat into our own cocoons and come face-to-face with who we are. We have to turn toward our own inner darkness. For only by abandoning its attachments and facing the darkness does the caterpillar's body begin to spread out and its light, beautiful wings begin to form.

  Julia Hill

  Beautiful, Reality, Light

  "The Legacy of Luna". Book by Julia Butterfly Hill, April 1, 2000.

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• We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.

  John Marsden

  Butterfly, Complaining

  37 Copy quote

• A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly

  Andre Gide

  Butterfly, Know Thyself, Knows

  22 Copy quote

• Adding wings to caterpillars does not create butterflies. It creates awkward and dysfunctional caterpillars. Butterflies are created through transformation.

  Stephanie Pace Marshall

  Butterfly, Wings, Awkward

  18 Copy quote

• Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Philosophy, Butterfly, Wish

  16 Copy quote

• It is in being the caterpillar that you become the butterfly.

  John Harricharan

  Butterfly

  John Harricharan (1993). “Morning Has Been All Night Coming”, Berkley Publishing Group

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• Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.

  Nhat Hanh

  Laughter, Struggle, Flower

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2011). “Your True Home: The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh: 365 days of practical, powerful teaching s from the beloved Zen teacher”, p.3, Shambhala Publications

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• Fighting has taught me that the caterpillar takes a while to turn into a majestic butterfly.

  Jesse Taylor

  Butterfly, Fighting, Mma

  7 Copy quote

• The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Time, Memories, Butterfly

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.438, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• Why is a caterpillar wrapped in silk while it changes into a butterfly? So the other caterpillars can't hear the screams. Change hurts

  Rory Miller

  Hurt, Butterfly, Scream

  Rory Miller (2014). “Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence”, p.157, YMAA Publication Center, Inc.

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• Awakening is not a thing. It is not a goal, not a concept. It is not something to be attained. It is a metamorphosis. If the caterpillar thinks about the butterfly it is to become, saying ‘And then I shall have wings and antennae,’ there will never be a butterfly. The caterpillar must accept its own disappearance in its transformation. When the marvelous butterfly takes wing, nothing of the caterpillar remains.

  Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Butterfly, Thinking, Wings

  81 Copy quote

• Although the butterfly and the caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same.

  Kendrick Lamar

  Butterfly, Different

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• Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow, Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . . How did it go? How did it go?

  Shel Silverstein

  Flower, Fall, Snow

  Shel Silverstein, “Forgotten Language”

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• Forgettingis a beautiful thing. When you forget, you remake yourself. For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must forget it was a caterpillar at all. Then it will be as if the caterpillar never was & there was only ever a butterfly.

  Robert Jackson Bennett

  Beautiful, Butterfly, Forget You

  9 Copy quote

• If everyone is speaking caterpillar, don’t be afraid to speak butterfly. When it’s time to awaken, nothing else will suit you.

  Tama J. Kieves

  Butterfly, Suits You, Speak

  15 Copy quote

• I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

  Zhuangzi

  Inspirational, Dream, Wisdom

  'Chuang Tzu' (1889, translated by H. A. Giles) ch. 2

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