quotations about birds
Birds were created to record everything. They were not designed just to be beautiful jewels in the sky, but to serve as the eyes of heaven.
SUZY KASSEM
Rise Up and Salute the Sun
We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn't sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can't fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don't stand a chance. We're mired in gravity, we're earthbound. We're ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.
MARGARET ATWOOD
"The Tent"
Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray,
With joyous music wake the dawning day!
ALEXANDER POPE
"Spring", Pastorals
Hark, by the bird's song ye may learn the nest.
ALFRED TENNYSON
The Marriage of Geraint
The bird avoids the nets that show too plainly.
OVID
Remediorum Amoris
Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.
DAVID LETTERMAN
The Late Show with David Letterman
Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Poet's Tale", Tales of a Wayside Inn
The shell must break before the bird can fly.
ALFRED TENNYSON
The Ancient Sage
You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
The dear Lord God, of His glories weary--
Christ our Lord had the heart of a boy--
Made Him birds in a moment merry,
Bade them soar and sing for his joy.
KATHERINE TYNAN HINKSON
The Making of Birds
When the little birds sweetly did sing
Lauds to their Maker early i' the morning.
STEPHEN HAWES
Passetyme of Pleasure
A rare bird upon the earth.
JUVENAL
Satires
Gone to the world where birds are blest!
Where never cat glides o'er the green.
SAMUEL ROGERS
Epitaph on a Robin
And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Deserted Village
Each bird loves to hear himself sing.
JAMES HOWELL
Proverbs
With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The Fountain
Many strange birds are on the air abroad,
Nor are all of one flight or of one force,
But each after his kind dissimilar.
GUINICELLI
Of Moderation and Tolerance
Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice,
And with that boding cry
Along the waves dost thou fly?
Oh! rather, bird, with me
Through this fair land rejoice!
RICHARD HENRY DANA
The Little Beach Bird
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.
STEPHEN KING
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption