"Suppose someone were to say: 'Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful'?!"
Read quote
5 likes
Butterfly quotes
Butterfly
592 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Butterfly
Browse quotes that often appear alongside butterfly — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Butterfly quotes (page 8 of 30)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Melville had to fight, fight against the existing world, against his own very self. Only he would never quite put the knife in the heart of his paradisal ideal. Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, love should be a fulfillment, and life should be a thing of bliss. That was his fixed ideal. Fata Morgana. That was the pin he tortured himself on, like a pinned-down butterfly."
Read quote
4 likes
"A soft Sea washed around the House A Sea of Summer Air And rose and fell the magic Planks That sailed without a care — For Captain was the Butterfly For Helmsman was the Bee And an entire universe For the delighted crew."
Read quote
4 likes
"Poetry is the establishment of a metaphorical link between white butterfly-wings and the scraps of torn-up love-letters."
Read quote
4 likes
"After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return."
Read quote
4 likes
"As those who have seen Jurassic Park will know, this means a tiny disturbance in one place, can cause a major change in another. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings, a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable."
Read quote
4 likes
"I went to school with butterflies of fear every day for years - from primary school onwards - not just worried about being bullied by classmates, but by teachers."
Read quote
4 likes
"Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakeable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou."
Read quote
4 likes
"It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that really change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe."
Read quote
4 likes
"...trust in Creation which is made fresh daily and doesn’t suffer in translation. This God does not work in especially mysterious ways. The sun here rises and sets at six exactly. A caterpillar becomes a butterfly. A bird raises its brood in the forest and a greenheart tree will only grow from a greenheart seed. He brings drought sometimes followed by torrential rains and if these things aren’t always what I had in mind, they aren’t my punishment either. They’re rewards, let’s say for the patience of a seed."
Read quote
3 likes
"A power of Butterfly must be - The Aptitude to fly Meadows of Majesty concedes And easy Sweeps of Sky -"
Read quote
3 likes
"Vladimir Nabokov was a writer who cared nothing for music and whose favorite sport was the pursuit, capture, and murder of butterflies. This explains many things; for example, the fact that Nabokov's novels, for all their elegance and wit, resemble nothing so much as butterflies pinned to a board: pretty but dead; symmetrical but stiff."
Read quote
3 likes
"Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock if it were left undisturbed."
Read quote
3 likes
"Poetry is an enumeration of birds, bees, babies, butterflies, bugs, bambinos, babayagas, and bipeds, beating their way up bewildering bastions."
Read quote
3 likes
"Perceive ye not that we are worms, designed To form the angelic butterfly, that goes To judgment, leaving all defence behind? Why doth your mind take such exalted pose, Since ye, disabled, are as insects, mean As worm which never transformation knows?"
Read quote
3 likes
"I never had come up with a really profound and strong gesture - nothing like Julia Butterfly's. So I figured the best thing I could do was live by my beliefs. That's probably the most profound thing that anybody can do."
Read quote
3 likes
"Love is like a butterfly As soft and gentle as a sigh The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings Love makes your heart feel strange inside It flutters like soft wings in flight Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing."
Read quote
3 likes
"Everything that Mr Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly."
Read quote
3 likes
"My family didn't go to church. Once when I slept over at the house of a friend, her parents brought me to Sunday school with her. I was given this little pamphlet of tiny poems about the natural world, about butterflies and sunsets. My 7-year-old self was so astounded by how these few words were creating pictures and feelings in me."
Read quote
3 likes
"The rattle of plastic keys reminds me of a squadron of butterflies failing to fight their way out of a paper bag."
Read quote
3 likes