Owl Quotes - Page 2

• In the enemy's territory, be as silent as the owl's wings; in friend's territory, be as cheerful as the nightingale's songs.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Song, Wings, Enemy

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• Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?

  Jonathan Swift

  Thinking, Woods, Born

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “The Works of Dr Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. Accurately Corrected by the Best Editions. With the Author's Life and Character; Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory; Tables of Contents, and Indexes. More Complete Than Any Preceding Edition. In Eight Volumes”, p.272

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• In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
  The spectral Owl doth dwell;
  Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
  But at the dusk--he's abroad and well!
  Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him--
  All mock him outright, by day:
  But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
  The boldest will shrink away!
  O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,
  Then, then, is the reign of the Horned Owl!

  Bryan Procter

  Fall, Sunshine, Night

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• Some men pray only when the world is dark, as owls hoot at night.

  Austin O'Malley

  Prayer, Dark, Night

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• The owl and the pussycat went to sea, / In a beautiful pea green boat. / They took some honey, and plenty of money, / Wrapped up in a five pound note.

  Edward Lear

  Beautiful, Sea, Green

  "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" l. 1 (1871)

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• Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Night, Lakes, Sound

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Collected Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated): Philosophical and Autobiographical Books, Essays, Poetry, Translations, Biographies & Letters: Walden, Civil Disobedience, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Slavery in Massachusetts, Walking…”, p.677, e-artnow

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• I like owls. I admire their intransigent spirit. I have respected them deeply ever since I met a baby owl in a wood, when it fell over dead, apparently from sheer temper, because I dared to approach it. It defied me first, and then died. I have never forgotten the horror and shame I experienced when that soft fluffy thing (towards which I had nothing but the most humanitarian motives) fell dead from rage at my feet.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Baby, Feet, Woods

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• I have learned that one of the most important rules in politics is poise - which means looking like an owl after you have behaved like a jackass.

  Ronald Reagan

  Mean, Important, Politics

  Ronald Reagan (1975). “The quotable Ronald Reagan: the common sense and straight talk of former California Governor, Ronald Reagan”

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• If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.

  Terry Goodkind

  Thinking, Trying, Dinner

  Terry Goodkind (2015). “Naked Empire”, p.315, Head of Zeus

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• Marriage is a wrestling match where you hold on tight while your mate changes into a hundred different things. The trick is that you're changing into a hundred other things, but you can't let go. You can only try to match up and never turn into a wolf while he's a rabbit, or a mouse while he's still busy being an owl, a brawny black bull while he's a little blue crab scuttling for shelter. It's harder than it sounds.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Letting Go, Wrestling, Blue

  Catherynne M. Valente (2013). “The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two”, p.167, Macmillan

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• Why should I copy this owl, this sea urchin? Why should I try to imitate nature? I might just as well try to trace a perfect circle.

  Pablo Picasso

  Sea, Circles, Perfect

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• If I was an owl, I would peck your eyes out. Wow this lyric is ****ing brilliant.

  Thom Yorke

  Eye, Wow, Brilliant

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• Owls are wise. They are careful and patient. Wisdom precludes boldness. That is why owls make poor heroes.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Wise, Hero, Patient

  Patrick Rothfuss (2010). “The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chonicle:”, p.514, Hachette UK

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• There was an old man with a beard, who said: 'It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard.

  Edward Lear

  Men, Two, Justice

  A Book of Nonsense (1846)

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• Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
  Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
  Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried,
  Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar.

  George Meredith

  Stars, Sunset, Night

  1851 Poems,'Love in the Valley', stanza 5. The poemwas revised and republished in1878.

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• The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Fall, Philosophical, Wings

  Philosophy of Right (1821)

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• She had always lived her best life in dreams. She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl's wings and talons and became other than conscious.

  John Crowley

  Dream, Doors, Wings

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• A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Serious, May

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.2301, Simon and Schuster

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• First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. & And second, what can I say? I'm a night owl.

  John M Barry

  Funny, Night, Dumb

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• I'm a night owl, and luckily my profession supports that. The best ideas come to me in the dead of night.

  Josh Fox

  Night, Ideas, Support

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Death’s a funny thing. I used to think it was a big, sudden thing, like a huge owl that would swoop down out of the night and carry you off. I don’t anymore. I think it’s a slow thing. Like a thief who comes to your house day after day, taking a little thing here and a little thing there, and one day you walk round your house and there’s nothing there to keep you, nothing to make you want to stay. And then you lie down and shut up forever. Lots of little deaths until the last big one.

  Neil Gaiman

  Lying, Night, Thinking

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• Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait,
  His day's hot task hath ended in the west:
  The owl, night's herald, shrieks-'tis very late;
  The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest;
  And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light,
  Do summon us to part, and bid good night.

  William Shakespeare

  Good Night, Goodnight, Clouds

  William Shakespeare, Katherine Duncan-Jones, H. R. Woudhuysen (2007). “Poems: Third Series”, p.178, Cengage Learning EMEA

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• No owl is afraid of the night, no snake of the swamp and no traitor of the treason!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Night, Snakes, Swamps

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• The owl, that bird of onomatopoetic name, is a repetitious question wrapped in feathery insulation especially for Winter delivery.

  Hal Borland

  Winter, Names, Bird

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• We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.

  Tom Brown, Jr.

  Nature, Native American, Crow

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