Bird quotes
1.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside bird — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there arenight owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business."
"In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird."
"All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover; and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint-Preux standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson."
"People don't use their eyes. They never see a bird, they see a sparrow. They never see a tree, they see a birch. They see concepts."
"This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds."
"The little birds have God for their caterer."
"I abide in a goodly Museum, Frequented by sages profound: 'Tis a kind of strange mausoleum, Where the beasts that have vanished abound. There's a bird of the ages Triassic, With his antediluvian beak, And many a reptile Jurassic, And many a monster antique."
"And the coolness of your smile is stirringofbirds between my arms"
"I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds."
"A bird in a cage is safe but God didn't create birds for that."
"Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field."
"Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs."
"Cats too, with what silent stealthiness, with what light steps do they creep up to a bird!"
"How strange to read of a place in a book, and then stand on it, listen to the birds sing, and spit on the cobbles if you want."
"Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper."
"Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas: I came under their spell. . . .Just as the survivors say that no one will ever understand the victims, what I must tell you is that you will never understand the executioners."
"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west."
"We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg."
"Our little kinsmen after rain In plenty may be seen, a pink and pulpy multitude The tepid ground upon; A needless life if seemed to me Until a little bird As to a hospitality Advanced and breakfasted."
"I cannot help esteem The 'Bird within the Hand' Superior to the one The 'Bush' may yield me Or may not Too late to choose again"
