Popular quotes about Birds! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
Birds are the last of the dinosaurs. Tiny velociraptors with wings. Devouring defenseless wiggly things and, and nuts, and fish, and, and other birds. They get the early worms. And have you ever watched a chicken eat? They may look innocent, but birds are, well, they're vicious.
Neil GaimanThe birds laugh loud and long together When Fashion's followers speed away At the first cool breath of autumn weather. Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay! When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over Both look their passion through sun-kissed space, As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover Might each gaze into the other's face.
Ella Wheeler WilcoxI can write anywhere really. I have a hard time writing when the birds are tweeting and the brooks are running outside. I've tried that several times, for months at a time, trying to write in a quiet, wonderful place where birds are twittering and coffee's brewing. And nothing happens. But if I'm in an old dump like my old apartment and I can't find my fingernail clippers and nothing's working except the old tea maker, that's just great. You always have to find and live in a place that's a little uncomfortable when you're a writer. You need a burr in your side.
James McBrideDo you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log.
Henry David ThoreauDid St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.
Rebecca WestThe fox when it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their heads.
Leonardo da VinciI speculate over some of the Anglo nomenclature of birds: Wilson's snipe, Forster's tern . . . : What natural images do these names conjure up in our minds? What integrity do we give back to the birds with our labels.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise.
Michael OndaatjeDevils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because anyone holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats.
C. S. LewisWe do express our emotions, our reactions to events, breakups and infatuations, but the way we do that - the art of it - is in putting them into prescribed forms or squeezing them into new forms that perfectly fit some emerging context. Thatโs part of the creative process, and we do it instinctively; we internalize it, like birds do. And itโs a joy to sing, like the birds do.
David Byrne.. to a poet, the human community is like the community of birds to a bird, singing to each other. Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another, love of language itself, love of sound, love of singing itself, and love of the other birds.
Sharon OldsUp then, fair phoenix bride, frustrate the sun; Thyself from thine affection Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye All lesser birds will take their jollity. Up, up, fair bride, and call Thy stars from out their several boxes, take Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make Thyself a constellation of them all; And by their blazing signify That a great princess falls, but doth not die. Be thou a new star, that to us portends Ends of much wonder; and be thou those ends.
John DonneEach 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.
Paulo CoelhoMaybe we are all prospective migrants. The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.
Mohsin HamidThen the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing, And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring; And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church, Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
William BlakeI look up at the ceiling, tracing the foliage of the wreath. Today it makes me think of a hat, the large-brimmed hats women used to wear at some period during the old days: hats like enormous halos, festooned with fruit and flowers, and the feathers of exotic birds; hats like an idea of paradise, floating just above the head, a thought solidified.
Margaret AtwoodI'm still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus for me. And, ah, there stand my kids.
Lee IacoccaThe birds that wake the morning, and those that love the shade; The winds that sweep the mountain or lull the drowsy glade; The Sun that from his amber bower rejoiceth on his way, The Moon and Stars, their Master's name in silent pomp display.
Reginald HeberAt the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; the winds will rock it, the birds will sing to it all summer long, but the next season it will unfold and go alone.
Henry Ward BeecherLet us suppose that we have laid on the table... [a] piece of glass... and let us homologize this glass to a whole order of plants or birds. Let us hit this glass a blow in such a manner as but to crack it up. The sectors circumscribed by cracks following the first blow may here be understood to represent families. Continuing, we may crack the glass into genera, species and subspecies to the point of finally having the upper right hand corner a piece about 4 inches square representing a sub-species.
Leon CroizatMay my heart always be open to little birds, who are the secrets of living. Whatever they sing is better than to know. And if men should not hear them - then men are old.
e. e. cummingsThe salvation of birds and beasts, oneself included - this is the object of Shakyamuni's religious austerities.
IkkyuYou donโt have a soul, so you canโt be baptized. All animals are like that. I think itโs unfair and sometimes I donโt believe it. After all, what would heaven be without birds or dogs or horses? And what about trees and flowers? They donโt have souls either. Does that mean heaven looks like a cement parking lot? I suppose this is what the nuns call a theological problem.
Nancy FarmerThe deep parts of my life pour onward, as if the river shores were opening out. I feel closer to what language can't reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb into the windy heaven... in the ponds broken off from the sky. . .
Rainer Maria RilkeYou must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.
Walt WhitmanScience, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could you ask of life? Aviation combined all the elements I loved. There was science in each curve of an airfoil, in each angle between strut and wire, in the gap of a spark plug or the color of the exhaust flame. There was freedom in the unlimited horizon, on the open fields where one landed. A pilot was surrounded by beauty of earth and sky. He brushed treetops with the birds, leapt valleys and rivers, explored the cloud canyons he had gazed at as a child. Adventure lay in each puff of wind.
Charles LindberghLook, I guess it's natural, you're teenagers, its springtime,everyone's thoughts are turning to birds and bees and caterpillars and moths..... - Iggy
James PattersonWhen we seed millions of acres of land with these plants, what happens to foraging birds, to insects, to microbes, to the other animals, when they come in contact and digest plants that are producing materials ranging from plastics to vaccines to pharmaceutical products?
Jeremy RifkinThe sky and the earth and the waters and the things that are in them, the fishes, and the birds and the trees are not evil. All these are good; it is evil men who make this evil world.
Saint AugustineMan has gone to the moon but he does not yet know how to make a flame tree or a bird song. Let us keep our dear countries free from irreversible mistakes which would lead us in the future to long for those same birds and trees.
Felix Houphouet-BoignyThe trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I donโt think they sing. They just screech in pain. โฆTaking a close look at whatโs around us, there is some sort of harmony: itโs the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.
Werner HerzogI don't really diet or anything. I'm miserable when I'm dieting and I like the way I look. I'm really sick of all these actresses looking like birds I'd rather look a little chubby on camera and look like a person in real life, than look great on screen and look like a scarecrow in real life.
Jennifer LawrenceGive food to the birds, you will then be surrounded by the wings of love, you will be encompassed by the joys of little silent hearts!
Mehmet Murat IldanIt's a very small object to be capable of doing many wonderful things, don't you think?" "It does much more that that," Valkyrie said, opening up a game and showing it to him. His eyes widened. "What wonder is this?" "It's called Angry Birds. Now do you believe me?
Derek Landy[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time.
Edna St. Vincent MillayNothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.
Charles DarwinThere is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
Samuel JohnsonHere may I live what life I please, Married and buried out of sight, - Married to pleasure and buried to pain, - Hidden away amongst scenes like these, Under the fans of the chestnut trees; Living my child-life over again, With the further hope of a fallen delight, Blithe as the birds and wise as the bees.
Violet FaneWakefulness is not a destination but a song the human heart keeps singing, the way birds keep singing at the first sign of light.
Mark NepoTo those whom the tree, the birds, the wildflowers represent only "locked-up dollars" have never known or really seen these things.
Edwin Way TealeEverything was curved to fit the walls: the stove, the sink and the cupboards, and all of it had been painted with flowers, insects and birds in bright primary colours.
J. K. RowlingBirds sing even when the world is filled with sadness. I don't know why people can't do the same thing.
Michael GilbertThe flamingoes are the most delicately colored of all the African birds, pink and red like a flying twig of an oleander bush. They have incredibly long legs and bizarre and recherchรฉ curves of their necks and bodies, as if from some exquisite traditional prudery they were making all attitudes and movements in life as difficult as possible.
Isak DinesenAwareness means the capacity to see a coffeepot and hear the birds sing in one's own way and not the way one was taught.
Eric BerneClouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies.
Arthur Conan DoyleWorking is bad enough in the winter, but in the summer it can become completely intolerable. Stuck in airless offices, every fibre of our being seems to cry out for freedom. We're reminded of being stuck in double maths while the birds sing outside.
Tom HodgkinsonWhen the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least must know It is the change to darkness in the sky. Murmuring something quiet in her breast, One bird begins to close a faded eye; Or overtaken too far from his nest, Hurrying low above the grove, some waif Swoops just in time to his remembered tree. At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe! Now let the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see Into the future. Let what will be, be.
Robert Frost