quotations about birds
Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced
A moment sits and sings;
He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,
Knowing that he has wings.
VICTOR HUGO
Wings
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
The bird is both ancient and excellent, sober and wise,
But he never could spend all the love that is sent for his eyes.
He bleats no instruction, he is not an arrogant drummer;
His gown is simplicity--blue as the smoke of the summer.
How patient he is as he puts out his wings for the blue!
His eyes are as old as the twilight, and calm as the dew.
SHAW NEILSON
The Crane is My Neighbor
A little bird told me.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Henry IV
It would have been hard for Fat Charlie to say exactly when the accumulation of birds on the wire mesh moved from interesting to terrifying. It was somewhere in the first hundred or so, anyway. And it was in the way they didn't coo, or caw, or trill, or song. They simply landed on the wire, and they watched him.
NEIL GAIMAN
Anansi Boys
A bird in the hand may be worth two in the bush, but remember also that a bird in the hand is a positive embarrassment to one not in the poultry business.
GEORGE ADE
"The Fable of the Old Fox and the Young Fox", True Bills
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
A bird knows nothing of gladness,
Is only a song machine.
GEORGE MACDONALD
Book of Dreams
The bird avoids the nets that show too plainly.
OVID
Remediorum Amoris
The little birds of the field have God for their caterer.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Yet this was but a simple bird,
Alone, among dead trees.
W.A. PERCY
Overtones
Heavenly bodies are nests of invisible birds.
DEJAN STOJANOVICH
The Creator
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
No man had ever heard a nightingale,
When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred
To study and define -- what is a bird.
EMMA LAZARUS
"Critic and Poet: An Apologue"
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
Lo--a black line of birds in wavering thread
Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!
EMMA LAZARUS
The Cranes of Ibicus
A small bird will drop frozen dead
From a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.
D.H. LAWRENCE
Self-Pity
If I stayed here with you, girl
Things just couldn't be the same
Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you can not change
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
"Free Bird"
Upon his saddle sprung a bird
And crossed a thousand trees
Before a fence without a fare
His fantasy did please
And then he lifted up his throat
And squandered such a note
A Universe that overheard
Is stricken by it yet--
EMILY DICKINSON
"Upon his Saddle sprung a Bird"