Quotes

Quotes about Birds


The birds chaunt melody on every bush, The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun, The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a checkered shadow on the ground; Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns, As if a double hunt were heard at once, Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise; And after conflict such as was supposed The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed, When with a happy storm they were surprised, And curtained with a counsel-keeping cave, We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber, Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds Be unto us as is a nurse's song Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.

William Shakespeare

Use what talents you possess; The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Henry Van Dyke

He beat the bushes without taking the birds. [Fr., [Il] battoit les buissons sans predre les ozillons.]

Francois Rabelais

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.

William Henry Channing

The happy bells shall ring Marguerite; The summer birds shall sing Marguerite; You smile but you shall wear Orange blossoms in your hair, Marguerite.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up, does rejoice. I guess I just miss my friend.

Arnold Bennett

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

Joseph Addison

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the grasshopper's--he takes the lead In summer luxury--he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

John Keats

The most pitiful human ailment is a birdseed heart.

Wilson Mizner

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.

Dale Carnegie

They've cut out their tongues and the larks can no longer sing the birds can no longer fly they've cut off their wings and in their next lives larks and birds will become those who've cut off larks' tongues and bird wings.

O Anna Niemus

Tell me who first did kisses suggest? It was a mouth all glowing and blest; It kissed and it thought of nothing beside. The fair month of May was then in its pride, The flowers were all from the earth fast springing, The sun was laughing, the birds were singing.

Heinrich Heine

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out.

Ogden Nash

Money can't buy real friendship—friendship must be earned. Money can't buy a clear conscience—square dealing is the price tag. Money can't buy the glow of good health—right living is the secret. Money can't buy happiness—happiness is a mental condition and one may be as happy in a cottage as in a mansion. Money can't buy sunsets, songs of wild birds and the music of the wind in the trees—these are as free as the air we breath. Money can't buy inward peace—peace is the result of a constructive philosophy in life. Money can't buy a good character—good character is achieved through decent habits of private living and wholesome dealings in our open contacts with our fellow men.

Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi or Anonymous

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.

James Dent

Use what talent you possess-the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.

Henry Van Dyke

That man's best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature's infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.

Lydia M. Child

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?

Rose Kennedy

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.

Henry David Thoreau

When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

William Shakespeare

Enjoy the spring of love and youth, To some good angel leave the rest, For time will teach thee soon the truth, "There are no birds in last year's nest."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds, That singing up to heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.

John Milton

Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact, the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking.

Steve Allen

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, Only the empty nests are left behind, And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodies birds sing madrigals.

Christopher Marlowe

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