Nightingales Quotes - Page 3

• It is quiet here and restful and the air is delicious. There are gardens everywhere and police spies lie in the bushes. There are nightingales in every garden, but police spies only in mine, I think. They sit under my windows in the darkness of the night and try to get a glimpse of how I spread sedition in Russia.

  Maxim Gorky

  Lying, Night, Garden

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• IN MEMORIAM: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
  She whom we love, our Lady of Compassion,
  Can never die, for Love forbids her death.
  Love has bent down in his old kindly fashion,
  And breathed upon her his immortal breath.
  On wounded soldiers, in their anguish lying,
  Her gentle spirit shall descend like rain.
  Where the white flag with the red cross is flying,
  There shall she dwell, the vanquisher of pain.

  Joyce Kilmer

  Fashion, Pain, Lying

  Joyce Kilmer (1911). “Summer of Love”

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• Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Song, Nature, Congratulations

  ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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• No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define -- what is a bird.

  Emma Lazarus

  Men, Bird, Study

  Emma Lazarus (2015). “The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume I: Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic”, p.215, Courier Corporation

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• I see that you believe in love such as the poets and romancers have represented... The poets represent love as the sculptors design beauty, as the musicians create melody; that is to say, endowed with an exquisite nervous organization, they gather up with discerning ardor the purest elements of life, the most beautiful lines of matter, and the most harmonious voices of nature.... To try to find in real life such love as this, eternal and absolute, is the same thing as to seek on the public squares such a woman as Venus or to expect nightingales to sing the symphonies of Beethoven.

  Alfred de Musset

  Love, Beautiful, Real

  Alfred de Musset (2012). “The Confession of a Child of the Century”, p.46, tredition

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• Just as a musician loves music and not nightingales, and a poet loves poetry and not sunsets, a painter is not primarily a person who responds to figures and landscapes. He is primarily one who loves pictures.

  Andre Malraux

  Love Picture, Sunset, Musician

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• A Locanian having plucked all the feathers off from a nightingale and seeing what a little body it had, "surely," quoth he, "thou art all voice and nothing else.

  Plutarch

  Art, Voice, Body

  "Laconic Apothegms".

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• The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent them to awaken Earth from her morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy, her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun.

  Heinrich Heine

  Nature, Morning, Spring

  Heinrich Heine (1871). “Pictures of travel,”, p.172

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• It would be as naive to study the song of the nightingale, as it would be ridiculous to try and win a King's Gambit against a representative of the old chess guard.

  David Bronstein

  Song, Kings, Winning

  David Bronstein (1991). “200 Open Games”, p.37, Courier Corporation

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• In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Funny, Integrity, Heart

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.68, University of Georgia Press

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• When Whitney Houston died, I felt great sadness. My sadness, of course, was about our collective loss - when you listened to this nightingale sing, your body would drop into a chair, your head would tilt up, a small smile would creep across your face, and inside you knew that there was a higher power somewhere: gifted, beautiful, spiritual.

  James Belushi

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Sadness

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• What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.

  Epictetus

  Song, Men, Swans

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• Who but knows
  How it goes!
  Life's a last year's Nightingale,
  Love's a last year's rose.

  William Ernest Henley

  Life, Years, Rose

  William Ernest Henley (1921). “Poems”

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• Ditty of First Desire In the green morning I wanted to be a heart. A heart. And in the ripe evening I wanted to be a nightingale. A nightingale. (Soul, turn orange-colored. Soul, turn the color of love.) In the vivid morning I wanted to be myself. A heart. And at the evening's end I wanted to be my voice. A nightingale. Soul, turn orange-colored. Soul, turn the color of love.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Morning, Heart, Color

  Federico García Lorca, “Ditty Of First Desire”

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• He stretched out his hands as he sang, sadly, because all beauty is sad…The poem had done no ‘good’ to anyone, but it was a passing reminder, a breath from the divine lips of beauty, a nightingale between two worlds of dust. Less explicit than the call to Krishna, it voiced our loneliness nevertheless, our isolation, our need for the Friend who never comes yet is not entirely disproved.

  E. M. Forster

  Loneliness, Dust, Hands

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• In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art.

  Dylan Thomas

  Art, Lying, Grief

  In My Craft or Sullen Art" l. 17 (1946)

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• You have the most revolting Florence Nightingale complex,' said Mrs. Smiling. It is not that at all, and well you know it. On the whole, I dislike my fellow beings; I find them so difficult to understand. But I have a tidy mind and untidy lives irritate me. Also, they are uncivilized.

  Stella Gibbons

  Florence Nightingale, Mind, Said

  Stella Gibbons (1977). “Cold comfort farm”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• To her [Florence Nightingale] chiefly I owed the awakening to the fact that sanitation is the supreme goal of medicine its foundation and its crown.

  Elizabeth Blackwell

  Science, Medicine, Goal

  Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (2016). “Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women: Autobiographical Sketches”, p.151, Library of Alexandria

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• WEATHERS This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, And nestlings fly; And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,' And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, And so do I. This is the weather the shepherd shuns, And so do I; When beeches drip in browns and duns, And thresh and ply; And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe, And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go, And so do I.

  Thomas Hardy

  Dream, Weather, Shepherds

  Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922) "Weathers"

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• Kathy Nightingale: What's good about sad? Sally Sparrow: It's happy for deep people.

  Steven Moffat

  People, Sparrows, Doctor Who

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• Death is a great price to pay for a red rose“, cried the Nightingale, "and Life is very dear to all. “ It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent oft he hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?

  Oscar Wilde

  Sweet, Heart, Blow

  Oscar Wilde (2008). “Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde”, p.24, Penguin

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• To be honest, I wrote so many drafts of this book [ The Nightingale ] and changed the characters so many times; the real surprise is that I finished the book at all.

  Megan Chance

  Real, Book, Character

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• When I was 12 years old, I read Nancy Drew mysteries and biographies of Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale and books about girls who love horses or go to nursing school. I belonged to the Girl Scouts and got A's in school and rarely disobeyed my parents. I still kept a collection of Barbie dolls in my room, and I almost never spoke to boys.

  Joyce Maynard

  Girl, Horse, Book

  "Coming of Age with Judy Blume". www.nytimes.com. December 3, 1978.

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• His voice was cloves and nightingales, it took us to spice markets in the Celebs, we drifted with him on a houseboat beyond the Coral Sea. We were like cobras following a reed flute.

  Janet Fitch

  Sea, Voice, Spices

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• Give me a platter of choice finnan haddie, freshly cooked in its bath of water and milk, add melted butter, a slice or two of hot toast, a pot of steaming Darjeeling tea, and you may tell the butler to dispense with the caviar, truffles and nightingales' tongues.

  Craig Claiborne

  Food, Two, Giving

  Craig Claiborne (1994). “Craig Claiborne's New York Times Food Encyclopedia”, Outlet

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