Owl Quotes - Page 7

• I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
  By the known rules of ancient liberty,
  When straight a barbarous noise environs me
  Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.

  John Milton

  Dog, Age, Liberty

  'Sonnet' 12 'I did but prompt the age' (1673)

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• All primitive people are frightened of owls,' said Harley. 'The villagers here are scared to death of the gufo. Birds of ill omen. If they see one, they think they'll die. But they never do. See one, I mean, of course,' he added with a laugh.

  Francis Brett Young

  Mean, Thinking, People

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• I live in Topanga Canyon, which is like a faux-rustic enclave in Los Angeles. I love the sounds of all the critters outside - the frogs, owls, crickets, and birds. Some of the birds around here are pretty accomplished musicians. You can learn a lot from them.

  Cliff Martinez

  Bird, Musician, Sound

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• I'm not very keen for doves or hawks. I think we need more owls.

  George Aiken

  Thinking, History, Needs

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• Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send the Talon for your head.

  Scott Snyder

  Bed, Watches, Gotham

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• When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it because its stews taste exactly like your old mother's hash, or to reject it because the owl-headed goddess of wisdom in its temple is fatter than the Statue of Liberty, is an equal mark of that want of imagination, that inaccessibility to experience, of which each of us who dies a natural death will die.

  Randall Jarrell

  Mother, Country, Law

  "The Obscurity of the Poet," Harvard University lecture, published in "Poetry and the Age" by Randall Jarrell, 1953.

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• You can't find an uglier urban environment than the centre of Hollywood, but then you go to Griffith Park, you go to the beach, you go to the mountains, and it's rural. I live up in the Hollywood Hills and I have frogs, owls, coyotes, mountain lions - but I'm ten minutes from the centre of the city.

  Moby

  Beach, Cities, Hollywood Hills

  "'The Humility That Comes From Being Hated': Moby Interviewed". Interview with Stephen Dalton, thequietus.com. May 9, 2011.

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• Gerard's spirit animal is a gazelle - that's how he's always answered - Frankie would definitely be a wolverine, I would be a shark because of my inability to sit still, and Ray? Ray would be... I'm thinking super intelligent, super articulate, I would think owl.

  Mikey Way

  Animal, Intelligent, Thinking

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• We have a very old conservation movement, particularly in the United States, which has focused on campaigns to protect endangered species: the spotted owl, the old-growth forest. But usually it stops there. To me, biodiversity is the full spectrum. Species conservation is not only about wilderness conservation. It’s also about protecting the livelihood of people even while changing the dominant relationship that humans have had with other species. In India, it’s an economic issue, not just an ecological one.

  Vandana Shiva

  Issues, People, Growth

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. September 29, 2011.

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• Basically, I am a night owl. My wife is an early bird, so she goes to bed around 9:30, and my kids are in bed about 8. So, if I am home, I will usually start writing about 9:30 and go till about 12:30 or 1:30, depending on what my energy level is.

  Barack Obama

  Kids, Home, Writing

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• I sit at the piano for a couple of hours and tinker away until I get something. I am a nocturnal spirit, like an owl.

  Thomston

  Couple, Piano, Nocturnal

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• My brain is dull, my sight is foul,
  I cannot write a verse, or read--
  Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl,
  And let us have a lark instead.

  Thomas Hood

  Sex, Writing, Sight

  Thomas Hood, Frances F. Broderip (1860). “Memorials: In 2 Vol”, p.339

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• Our minds can go no further. The human imagination is capable of no further expression of beauty than the carved owl of Athene, the archaic, marble serpent, the arrogant selfish head of the Acropolis Apollo.

  Hilda Doolittle

  Beauty, Selfish, Expression

  Hilda Doolittle, Louis L. Martz (1986). “Collected Poems 1912-1944”, p.327, New Directions Publishing

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• There was an Old Man with an owl, Who continued to bother and howl; He sate on a rail, and imbibed bitter ale, Which refreshed that Old Man and his owl.

  Edward Lear

  Men, Alcohol, Ale

  Edward Lear (2009). “The Book of Nonsense”, p.35, The Floating Press

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• Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them; as owls might talk of sunshine,--none of your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they do not understand,--which they are abed and asleep to, however much it may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Sunshine, Moon

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.423, Simon and Schuster

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• I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, To holy virgins in their ecstasies.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Cat, Blue, Blind

  'Idylls of the King' (1842-85) 'The Holy Grail' (1869) l. 862

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• "Top" management is supposed to be a tree full of owls-hooting when management heads into the wrong part of the forest. I'm still unpersuaded they even know where the forest is.

  Robert Townsend

  Top Management, Tree, Forests

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• The sun was set; the night came on apace, And falling dews bewet around the place; The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings, And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings.

  John Gay

  Fall, Night, Wings

  John Gay, “The Shepherd's Week: Wednesday; Or, The Dumps”

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• I'm definitely a night owl. I get going about the time my wife crashes and goes to bed. And in some sense, I've had to learn to be more of a cat napper in recent years because Perl development, Perl design and development, has become a worldwide phenomenon - not just mailing lists, but RSC channels, Twitter even. This all happens 24 hours a day. And people come up with questions at any time of the day or night.

  Larry Wall

  Cat, Night, Years

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

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• The Democrats talked about putting people first. Well, they put people first unless you happen to be a spotted owl or a giant garter snake or some other endangered species and then that seems to have priority. Obviously, you take the bald eagle and things of that sort, of course you're going to make sure that they are saved and that they can live and you're going to take every precaution that you can. But others - we just need a little flexibility.

  Dan Quayle

  Eagles, Snakes, People

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• Animals like crows, owls or black cats are not ominous at all; it is the men's superstitious mind which is the inauspicious one!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Cat, Men, Animal

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• We are the owls of the weather chaw. We take it blistering, We take it all. Roiling boiling gusts, We're the owls with the guts. For blizzards our gizzards Dr tremble with joy. An ice storm, a gale, how we love blinding hail. We fly forward and backward, Upside down and flat. Do we flinch? Do we wail? Do we skitter or scutter? No, we yarp one more pellet And fly straight for the gutter! Do we screech? Do we scream? Do we gurgle? Take pause? Not on your life! For we are the best Of the best of the chaws!

  Kathryn Lasky

  Ice, Weather, Joy

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• Give me a hot coal glowing bright red, Give me an ember sizzling with heat, These are the jewels made from my beak. We fly between the flames and never get singed We plunge through the smoke and never cringe. The secrets of fire, its strange winds, its rages, We know it all as it rampages Through forests, through canyons, Up hillsides and down. We track it. We'll find it. Take coals by the pound. We'll yarp in the heart of the hottest flame Then bring back its coals an make them tame. For we are the colliers brave and beyond all We are the owls of the colliering chaw!

  Kathryn Lasky

  Heart, Fire, Glowing

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• Hush little owl, You're with Twi. I got the moves to get you by. Big bad crows. St. Aggie's scamps Ain't got nothin to show the champ. I'll pop a spiral With a twist, Do a three-sixty And scatter mist----

  Kathryn Lasky

  Moving, Crow, Twists

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• To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.

  Beryl Markham

  Dog, Horse, Believe

  Beryl Markham (2012). “West with the Night”, p.122, Open Road Media

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