“Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was almost indignant that he had not heard more of its reputation before.”

—  Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Recreation (1919)
Context: Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was almost indignant that he had not heard more of its reputation before. He said everybody talked about the song of the thrush; it had a great reputation, but the song of the blackbird, though less often mentioned, was much better than that of the thrush. He wanted to know the reason of this injustice and kept asking the question of himself and me. At last he suggested that the name of the bird must have injured its reputation. I suppose the real reason is that the thrush sings for a longer period of the year than the blackbird and is a more obtrusive singer, and that so few people have sufficient feeling about bird songs to care to discriminate.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was almost indignant that he had not heard more of it…" by Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon?
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon photo
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon20
British Liberal statesman 1862–1933

Related quotes

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon photo

“One more instance I will give of his interest and his knowledge. We were passing under a fir tree when we heard a small song in the tree above us. We stopped and I said that was the song of a golden-crested wren. He listened very attentively while the bird repeated its little song, as its habit is. Then he said, "I think that is exactly the same song as that of a bird that we have in America"; and that was the only English song that he recognized as being the same as any bird song in America. Some time afterwards I met a bird expert in the Natural History Museum in London and told him this incident, and he confirmed what Colonel Roosevelt had said, that the song of this bird would be about the only song that the two countries had in common. I think that a very remarkable instance of minute and accurate knowledge on the part of Colonel Roosevelt. It was the business of the bird expert in London to know about birds. Colonel Roosevelt's knowledge was a mere incident acquired, not as part of the work of his life, but entirely outside it.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Recreation (1919)

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon photo

“Though I know something about British birds I should have been lost and confused among American birds, of which unhappily I know little or nothing. Colonel Roosevelt not only knew more about American birds than I did about British birds, but he knew about British birds also. What he had lacked was an opportunity of hearing their songs, and you cannot get a knowledge of the songs of birds in any other way than by listening to them.
We began our walk, and when a song was heard I told him the name of the bird. I noticed that as soon as I mentioned the name it was unnecessary to tell him more. He knew what the bird was like. It was not necessary for him to see it. He knew the kind of bird it was, its habits and appearance. He just wanted to complete his knowledge by hearing the song. He had, too, a very trained ear for bird songs, which cannot be acquired without having spent much time in listening to them. How he had found time in that busy life to acquire this knowledge so thoroughly it is almost impossible to imagine, but there the knowledge and training undoubtedly were. He had one of the most perfectly trained ears for bird songs that I have ever known, so that if three or four birds were singing together he would pick out their songs, distinguish each, and ask to be told each separate name; and when farther on we heard any bird for a second time, he would remember the song from the first telling and be able to name the bird himself.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Recreation (1919)

“He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Neil Diamond photo

“Yesterday's songs
Don't stay around long,
Not much anymore.
Yesterday's words
Don't make themselves heard
Like they did before.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Yesterday's Songs
Song lyrics, On the Way to the Sky (1981)

Tad Williams photo

““Is this being in love?” he suddenly wondered? It was nothing like the ballads he had heard sung—this was more irritating than uplifting.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 31, “The Councils of the Prince” (p. 500).

Epifanio de los Santos photo

“Before the conquest, the Filipinos had a literature written in characters of their own, and its manifestation in verse constituted of maxims, proverbs, boat-songs, nuptial-songs, war songs, love-songs, and the like.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

As a quote in Quirino & Hilario's "Short History of Tagalog Literature" in Thinking for Ourselves. Manila Oriental Co. 1924, p. 56-57.

Cassandra Clare photo

“They had met at a club fifteen years before, Etta and Magnus. He had convinced her to dance with him, and she said she had been in love by the end of the song. He told her he had been in love before the beginning.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

Joseph Addison photo

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

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 477 (6 September 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Philip José Farmer photo

“It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), Chapter 1 (pp. 3-4)
Context: It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.
He had died. Now he was alive. He had scoffed all his life at a life-after-death. For once, he could not deny that he had been wrong. But there was no one present to say, "I told you so, you damned infidel!"
Of all the millions, he alone was awake.

James Joyce photo

“His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Related topics