Toads Quotes

• Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

  Marianne Moore

  Inspirational, Life, Art

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• The toad has indeed no superior as a destroyer of noxious insects, and he possesses no bad habits and is entirely inoffensive himself, every owner of a garden should treat him with utmost hospitality.

  Celia Thaxter

  Animal, Garden, Hospitality

  Celia Thaxter (2008). “An Island Garden”, p.10, Applewood Books

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• Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

  William Shakespeare

  Sweet, Adversity, Jewels

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 1, l. 12

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• Ask a toad what is beauty....; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat head, a yellow belly and a brown back.

  Voltaire

  Beauty, Eye, Two

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• Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Funny, Morning, Time

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• Did you hear 'bout Ticklish Tom? He got tickled by his mom. Wiggled and giggled and fell on the floor, . . . . And all the more that he kept gigglin', All the more folks kept ticklin'. He shrieked and screamed and rolled around, Laughed his way right out of town. Through the country down the road, He got tickled by a toad. . . . . Giggling, rolling on his back He rolled on the railroad track. Rumble, rumble, whistle, roar- Tom ain't ticklish any more.

  Shel Silverstein

  Mom, Country, Laughter

  Shel Silverstein, “Ticklish Tom”

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• By the grey woods, by the swamp, where the toad and newt encamp, by the dismal tarns and pools, where dwell the Gouls. By each spot the most unholy, by each nook most melancholy, there the traveller meets, aghast, sheeted memories of the Past. Shrouded forms that start and sigh, as they pass the wanderer by. White-robed forms of friends long given; In agony, to the Earth - and Heaven.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Memories, Past, Agony

  Edgar Allan Poe (1927). “The best known works of Edgar Allan Poe: poems, tales, essays, criticisms”

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• Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Food, Science, Men

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2387, Delphi Classics

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• The music of all creatures has to do with their loves, even of toads and frogs. Is it not the same with man?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Music, Men, Frogs

  Henry David Thoreau, Abigail Rorer (2010). “Of Woodland Pools, Spring-holes & Ditches: Excerpts from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau Wherein He Observes and Reflects Upon the Nature of Life and Vernal Pools”, p.60, Counterpoint Press

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• Apparently you're not allowed to lick a toad's back.

  Karl Pilkington

  Xfm, November 2, 2002.

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• Every one at the bottom of his heart cherishes vanity; even the toad thinks himself good-looking,--"rather tawny perhaps, but look at his eye!

  Woodrow Wilson

  Heart, Eye, Thinking

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• If it is your duty to croak like the toad, then
  go ahead! And with all your might! Make them
  hear you!

  Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Might, Duty, Ifs

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• Toad talked big about all he was going to do in the days to come, while stars grew fuller and larger all around them, and a yellow moon, appearing suddenly and silently from nowhere in particular, came to keep them company and listen to their talk.

  Kenneth Grahame

  Stars, Moon, Yellow

  Kenneth Grahame (1914). “The Wind in the Willows”, p.17, Hayes Barton Press

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• A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

  Honore de Balzac

  Nature, Flower, Irony

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• Think as I think," said a man, "or you are abominably wicked; you are a toad." And after I thought of it, I said, "I will, then, be a toad.

  Stephen Crane

  Men, Thinking, Wicked

  Stephen Crane, “Think As I Think”

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• The difference between love and logic is that in the eyes of a lover, a toad can be a prince, whereas in the analysis of a logistician, the lover would have to prove that the toad was a prince, an enterprise destined to dull the shine of many a passion.

  Tom Robbins

  Breakup, Passion, Eye

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.161, Bantam

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• It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.

  Mark Twain

  Animal, Men, Coal

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 9, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

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• If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry.

  Dave Barry

  Cute, Plight, Made

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.285, Ballantine Books

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• Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?

  Kenneth Grahame

  Adventure, Might, Spirit

  Kenneth Grahame, Scott McKowen (2005). “The Wind in the Willows”, p.171, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

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• I'm sure I've been a toad, one time or another. With bats, weasels, worms...I rejoice in the kinship. Even the caterpillar I can love, and the various vermin.

  Theodore Roethke

  Nature, Bats, Caterpillars

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.219, Anchor

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• Come back and wake me up.....half past May! (the Toad)

  Arnold Lobel

  Past, Half, May

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• I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeurve for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels!

  Walt Whitman

  Running, Depressing, Stars

  Walt Whitman, “Song Of Myself, XXXI”

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• To find a prince, you gotta kiss some toads.

  Foxy Brown

  Cute Relationship, Kissing, Dating

  Song: Ill Na Na, Album: Ill Na Na, 1996

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• Helpless, unknown, and unremembered, most human beings, however sensitive, idealistic, intelligent, go through life as passengers rather than chauffeurs. Although we may pretend that it is the chauffeur who is the social inferior, most of us, like Toad of Toad Hall, would not mind a turn at the wheel ourselves.

  Ralph Harper

  Intelligent, Mind, Wheels

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• Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." shall we have it.

  Marianne Moore

  Real, Garden, Imagination

  'Poetry' (1935)

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