Swans Quotes - Page 4

• My last night as Isabella Swan. Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen. Though the whole marriage ordeal was a thorn in my side, I had to admit that I liked the sound of that. - bella swan

  Stephenie Meyer

  Night, Sound, Would Be

  Stephenie Meyer (2009). “Breaking Dawn: Twilight”, p.25, Hachette UK

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• I sit in the sky like a sphinx misunderstood; My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans; I hate the movement that displaces the rigid lines, With lips untaught neither tears nor laughter do I know.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Laughter, Hate, Heart

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• Sometimes I feel my arm is like a swan's neck - so weak.

  Maria Sharapova

  Hands, Arms, Necks

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• I already know how strong you are. You didn't have to break the furniture." —Bella Swan

  Stephenie Meyer

  Strong, Twilight, Furniture

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• Gaze not on swans, in whose soft breast,
  A full-hatched beauty seems to nest
  Nor snow, which falling from the sky
  Hovers in its virginity.

  Henry Noel Brailsford

  Beauty, Fall, Sky

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• I like relativity and quantum theories because I don't understand them and they make me feel as if space shifted about like a swan that can't settle, refusing to sit still and be measured; and as if the atom were an impulsive thing always changing its mind.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Science, Space, Mind

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.6729, Delphi Classics

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• When we accept bad art because it's good politics, we're killing the swan to feed the chickens.

  Tom Robbins

  Art, Killing, Accepting

  Tom Robbins (2006). “Wild Ducks Flying Backward”, p.167, Bantam

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• A rare bird upon the earth and very much like a black swan.

  Juvenal

  Bird, Black, Earth

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• Some men are born to good luck: all they do or try to do comes right—all that falls to them is so much gain—all their geese are swans—all their cards are trumps—toss them which way you will, they will always, like poor puss, alight upon their legs, and only move on so much the faster. The world may very likely not always think of them as they think of themselves, but what care they for the world? what can it know about the matter?

  Jacob Grimm

  Moving, Fall, Good Luck

  Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm “Annotated Grimms' Fairy Tales with English Grammar Exercises: by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

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• The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.

  Henry Miller

  Song, Singing, Literature

  Henry Miller (1963). “The Rosy Crucifixion”

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• A rare bird on this earth, like nothing so much as a black swan.

  Juvenal

  Bird, Black, Earth

  'Satires' no. 6, l. 165

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• I don't think you're happier if you're thin or beautiful or rich or married. You have to make your own happiness. My heroines do not become beautiful elegant swans, they become confident ducks and get on with life.

  Maeve Binchy

  Beautiful, Thinking, Ducks

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• If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.

  Epictetus

  Roles, Praise, Rational

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• Swans moulting die, snow melts to tears,
  Roses do blush and hang their heads

  Henry Noel Brailsford

  Beauty, Death, Snow

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• So," she went on, "it got me thinking about what cost beauty. Or for that matter, what cost anything? Would you trade love for beauty? Or happiness for beauty? Could a gorgeous person with a mean streak be a worthy trade? And if you did make the trade, decide you'd take that beautiful swan and hope it wouldn't turn on you, what would you do if it did?

  Sarah Dessen

  Beautiful, Mean, Thinking

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “This Lullaby”, p.125, Penguin

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• I was too young that time to value her, But now I know her. If she be a traitor, Why, so am I. We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable.

  William Shakespeare

  Rose, Together, Traitor

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works”, p.1704, Oxford University Press

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• The soul, O ganders, flies beyond the parks
  And far beyond the discords of the wind.

  Wallace Stevens

  Wind, Soul, Parks

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p.4, Vintage

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• People who think they know what is going to happen next are fools. Surprises - or what the brilliant author Nassim Taleb calls 'Black Swans' - are inevitable. Some are likely to be desperately unpleasant too

  Martin Wolf

  Ignorance, Thinking, People

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• The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Ideas, Rare Events, Black

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• Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands seemed much more likely in this green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom. Bella Swan Stephenie Meyer

  Stephenie Meyer

  Believe, Cutting, Years

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• Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked. 'In the fortresses,' the swan replied. 'And the poets?' 'Lost in dreams of other worlds.' 'And the craftsmen?' 'Forging machines to challenge the darkness.' 'And the Wise, who made the world?' The swan lowered its black neck sadly. 'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.

  Catherine Fisher

  Wise, Dream, Other Worlds

  Catherine Fisher (2011). “Incarceron”, p.205, Penguin

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• Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

  Maeve Binchy

  Beautiful, Ugly Duckling, Ducks

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• The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full and clear.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Hymns, Joy, Soul

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)”, p.229, Delphi Classics

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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, Hymns

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• With 'Black Swan,' the ballerina saga flips its tiara and goes on a hallucinatory bender, a scary acid trip where transfiguration and disfiguration meet.

  James Wolcott

  Scary, Black, Goes On

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