Caterpillars Quotes

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

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Inspirational, Change, Success

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• 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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• 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

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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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• 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

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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

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• 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

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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

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

  Andre Gide

  Butterfly, Know Thyself, Knows

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• 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

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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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• 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

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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

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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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• 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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• 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

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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

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• 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

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• When I think of mystery, I don't think about myself. I think of the universe, like why does the moon rise when the sun falls? Caterpillars turn into butterflies? I really haven't remained a recluse.

  Bob Dylan

  Fall, Butterfly, Thinking

  "Bob Dylan Not Like a Rolling Stone Interview". "Spin" Magazine Interview with Scott Cohen, www.interferenza.com. December 1985.

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• Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
  because even today I still arrive.
  Look at me: I arrive in every second
  to be a bud on a spring branch,
  to be a tiny bird whose wings are still fragile,
  learning to sing in my new nest,
  to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
  to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

  Nhat Hanh

  Spring, Flower, Learning

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• The colours of insects and many smaller animals contribute to conceal them from the larger ones which prey upon them. Caterpillars which feed on leaves are generally green; and earth-worms the colour of the earth which they inhabit; butter-flies, which frequent flowers, are coloured like them; small birds which frequent hedges have greenish backs like the leaves, and light-coloured bellies like the sky, and are hence less visible to the hawk who passes under them or over them.

  Erasmus Darwin

  Nature, Flower, Science

  Erasmus Darwin (1807). “The Botanic Garden: A Poem, in Two Parts: Part I. Containing The Economy of Vegetation. Part II. The Loves of the Plants”

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• 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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• 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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