Quotes about birds

A collection of quotes on the topic of bird, likeness, doing, singing.

Best quotes about birds

“No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

“I am a cage, in search of a bird.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

16
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Variant: A cage went in search of a bird.

“A man without ambition is like a bird without wings”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/10/14/wings/

“I want to paint the way a bird sings.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Variant: I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Source: Monet By Himself

“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

As quoted in Investing with Impact: Why Finance is a Force for Good (2016) by Jeremy Balkin

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 4.

“No empty handed man can lure a bird”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

Source: The Canterbury Tales

“And the flowers sing in D minor
And the birds fly happily.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Spank Thru.
Song lyrics, B-sides and compilation tracks (1989-1993)

“Spring: trees flying up to their birds”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

“A man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime.”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Source: Death of a Salesman

Quotes about birds

“Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don't speak bird.”

Kurt Cobain book Journals

Journals (2002)
Context: Birds... scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don't speak bird. [p. 224]

Truth, Rage

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Faith, Faith, Feeling, Light

“Caged birds accept each other, but flight is what they long for.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

“If only, if only, the moon speaks no reply;
Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by.
Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly.
Fly high, my baby bird,
My angel, my only”

Louis Sachar book Holes

Source: Holes

Angels, Strong, Wolf, Sun

“Perched up high on a rooftop,
like a bird I'm having evil thoughts,
A black hood covers my face
as death flows through my mind at its own pace.”

Eazy-E (1963–1995) American rapper and producer

"Neighborhood Sniper", 5150: Home 4 tha Sick (1992).
1990s

Death, Evil

“Feathers shall raise men towards the heaven even as they do the birds. That is by the letters written by their quills.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XLV Prophecies

Men

“Once through this ruined city did I pass
I espied a lonely bird on a bough and asked
‘What knowest thou of this wilderness?’
It replied: 'I can sum it up in two words:
‘Alas, Alas!”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Source: Delhi

“One swallow does not make a summer,
neither does one fine day;
similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics

Depressing, Time, Summer, Personality

“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Singing, Heart

“Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird
that can not fly.

Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Source: The Collected Poems

Life, Dreams, Flying

“Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important
just to look.”

Marina Abramović (1946) Yugoslav-American artist

Art, Singing, Painting

“Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Bird on the Wire"
Songs from a Room (1969)

Way

“A faithful and good servant is a real godsend; but truly 'tis a rare bird in the land.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

156
Table Talk (1569)

Faith

“Enquire: 'Who am I?' and you will find the answer. Look at a tree: from one seed arises a huge tree; from it comes numerous seeds, each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree. So, it is the same Atman everywhere. All creation is That: There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must enquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is samsara. But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that.”

Sri Anandamoyi Ma (1896–1982) Hindu saint

Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly
By herself

Life, Death, Beauty, Birth

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

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy

People, Feeling, Singing

“I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

Reported in " Best: Decline of the golden boy http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4090840.stm", BBC News (June 14 2005).

Money, Cars

“I never saw a wild thing
Sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Self-Pity (1929)
Source: The Complete Poems

Dead

“…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.” (p.275)”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

Source: Facing the Lion, Being the Lion: Finding Inner Courage Where It Lives

Fish, Learning, Teachers, Water

“How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?”

William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Source: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Youth, Fear, Spring, Singing

“You cannot keep birds from flying over your head
but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Flying

“Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Love, Life, Sea

“It's interesting… there are two different kinds of dinosaurs - the bird-hip and the lizard-hip dinosaur. Their hips are very different. Ask an evolutionist, "Which type of dinosaur evolved into the bird? Was it the bird-hip or the lizard-hip?" And they will probably kind of hang their head and quietly say, "Well, it was the lizard-hip." Oh, so now the hip's got to turn around backwards too in addition to the billions of other changes you've got to make. There's no evidence of how dinosaurs evolved to birds. None.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Lies in the textbooks

Change

“I like happy things, I'm really calm and peaceful. I like birds, bees, I like people. I like funny things that make me happy and gleeful… like when my teacher sucked my wee-wee in pre-school!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"I'm Shady" (Track 18).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

People, School, Peace, Teachers

“I've been waiting for that! (After an audience member requests "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.)”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

1993-11-18 at Sony Music Studios, New York City, New York (MTV Unplugged).
Stage banter

Waiting

“When people talk about reincarnation, I always feel that if there is such a thing, this is definitely my first time, because I'm always amazed. I'm both amazed at how horrifically we can treat each other and all other living things, and also amazed at the wonder and the beauty. I'm like: 'Oh my God, look at that bird!' or 'Look at that flower!' literally every single day. I can't get over how people are putting so much energy and so many resources into going to Mars when everything we could ever dream of is on this planet, if we just take care of it. What do they have on Mars? They don't even have oxygen up there!”

Daryl Hannah (1960) actress

"'I'm a little bit of a nerd'", interview with The Guardian (7 June 2009) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/07/interview-daryl-hannah.

God, People, Beauty, Dreams

“The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on Earth.”

Dorothy Frances Gurney (1858–1932) English hymnwriter, poet

"God's Garden" lines 13–16, Poems, by Dorothy Frances Gurney (London: Country Life, 1913).

God, Kiss, Sun, Heart

“I wish I had been born a bird instead," he said.
"I wish we had all been born birds instead.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

“Swords flashed like lightning amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting stars. The friends of God defeated their obstinate opponents, and quickly put them to a complete rout. Noon had not arrived when the Musulmans had wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of Allah, killing 15,000 of them, spreading them like a carpet over the ground, and making them food for beasts and birds of prey… The enemy of God, Jaipal, and his children and grandchildren,… were taken prisoners, and being strongly bound with ropes, were carried before the Sultan, like as evildoers, on whose faces the fumes of infidelity are evident, who are covered with the vapours of misfortune, will be bound and carried to Hell. Some had their arms forcibly tied behind their backs, some were seized by the cheek, some were driven by blows on the neck. The necklace was taken off the neck of Jaipal, - composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold, of which the value was two hundred thousand dinars; and twice that value was obtained from necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners, or slain, and had become the food of the mouths of hyenas and vultures. Allah also bestowed upon his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five hundred thousand slaves, beautiful men and women. The Sultan returned with his followers to his camp, having plundered immensely, by Allah's aid, having obtained the victory, and thankful to Allah… This splendid and celebrated action took place on Thursday, the 8th of Muharram, 392 H., 27th November, 1001 AD.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 27 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

Women, Men, God, Children

“If any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and fly upward, like a fish who puts his head out and sees the world, he would see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain this sight, he would acknowledge that this was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true stars. For this earth, and the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, are spoilt and corroded…”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

World, Star, Nature, Fish

“Slowly the joy of flower and bird
Did like a tide withdraw;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

" The Chantry Of The Cherubim http://www.bartleby.com/236/219.html" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson. Context: p>I walk as one unclothed of flesh, I wash my spirit clean; I see old miracles afresh, And wonders yet unseen. I will not leave Thee till Thou give Some word whereby my soul may live!I listened — but no voice I heard; I looked — no likeness saw; Slowly the joy of flower and bird Did like a tide withdraw; And in the heaven a silent star Smiled on me, infinitely far.</p

Smile, Star, Flowers, Joy

“Then swiftly, neatly, with the grace of the young man on the trapeze, he was gone from his body.
For an eternal moment he was still all things at once: the bird, the fish, the rodent, the reptile, and man.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

"The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze"
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
Context: Then swiftly, neatly, with the grace of the young man on the trapeze, he was gone from his body.
For an eternal moment he was still all things at once: the bird, the fish, the rodent, the reptile, and man. An ocean of print undulated endlessly and darkly before him. The city burned. The herded crowd rioted. The earth circled away, and knowing that he did so, he turned his lost face to the empty sky and became dreamless, unalive, perfect.

Fish

“Like birds whose wings are broken, you live without direction!”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

“Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new-create another heir
As great in admiration as herself.”

William Shakespeare Henry VIII

Source: Henry VIII

Peace, Sleep

“I don't know if this is true to you but for me
sometimes it gets so bad
that anything else
say like
looking at a bird on an overhead
power line
seems as great as a Beethoven symphony.
then you forget it and you're back
again.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: Bone Palace Ballet

Forgetting

“Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you: a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting, a bee humming, a raindrop falling, a snowflake wafting along the clear evening air. There is magic everywhere. If you learn how to live it, life is nothing short of a daily miracle.”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Life, Flowers, Learning, Bee

“This autumn-
why am I growing old?
bird disappearing among clouds.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Autumn

“Gaea?” Leo shook his head. “Isn’t that Mother Nature? She’s supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and dear and rabbits doing her laundry.”
“Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Flowers, Nature, Singing

“Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Laughter, Flying

“What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Variant: What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bee and he told me about the butcher and my wife.

Bee

“I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Collected Poems (1938) New Poems 22
Variant: I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

Star, Learning, Singing, Dance

“A person isn't a bird. You can't cage a person.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

Personality

“Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird's throat;
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Love, Lie, Tree, Winter

“The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the words with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.”

Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) Italian writer and journalist

Life

“Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner -- what is it?
if not the intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose

Law, Star

“They cripple the bird's wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Malcolm X on Zionism (1964)

Flying

“Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words--"
"You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Effort

“She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, seperate, in the evening.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“He learned to communicate with birds and discovered their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with windspeed, wingspans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Communication, Learning

“The world going insane and evil letting slip the birds of war is no excuse for sloppy vocabulary.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

War, World, Evil

“People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

People, History

“What are you?" I whispered.
He shrugged again.
"Something," he said. "Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel." He laughed. "Something like that.”

David Almond book Skellig

Source: Skellig

Angels

“There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pnin

Source: Pnin

Housing

“And if you are not a bird, then beware of coming to rest above an abyss.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Autumn, Singing, Summer, Flying

“Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake.

All the vines are ripening
And the trees come into bud,
For my love's footsteps passing by
Are summoning the spring.

Rian's stars in the night
Shine more brightly over her,
The god's moon and the goddess's
Guard her with their light.

Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake”

Guy Gavriel Kay (1954) Canadian author of fantasy fiction

Source: A Song for Arbonne

Love, God, Star, Spring

“Suddenly for no earthly reason I felt immensely sorry for him and longed to say something real, something with wings and a heart, but the birds I wanted settled on my shoulders and head only later when I was alone and not in need of words.”

Vladimir Nabokov book The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Source: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Heart

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

Sadness, Flying

“You don't take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn't polite, but because he's a cat.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Cats

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

“Birds of a feather flock together”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

“One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Light

“Love birds don't always sing pretty tunes.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Tears of the Moon

Love, Singing

“Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through the land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast -
And half believe it true.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Dreams, Silence

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Funny

“No, Kramisha, he's not black. He's a killer bird with evil for his Daddy.”

P. C. Cast book Burned

Source: Burned

Evil

“This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Flying

“The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Books, Knowledge, Problem

“A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Books, Suffering, Past, Flying

“The girl dreams she is dangerously ill. Suddenly birds come out of her skin and cover her completely… Swarms of gnats obscure the sun, the moon, and all the stars except one. That one start falls upon the dreamer.”

C.G. Jung book Man and His Symbols

Source: Man and His Symbols

Dreams, Girl, Star, Sun

“What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Soul

“The sigh of all the seas breaking in measure round the isles soothed them; the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep, until, the birds beginning and the dawn weaving their thin voices in to its whiteness”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Sleep, Sea, Night

“Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden, so too, the bhikkhu becomes content with robes to protect his body and with almsfood to maintain his stomach, and wherever he goes he sets out taking only these with him. Possessing this aggregate of noble virtue, he experiences within himself a bliss that is blameless.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Sutta 51, Verse 15, p. 450
Source: Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Majjhima Nikaya (Middle Length Discourses)

“My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

31 The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

Heart

“The genius continually discovers fate, and the more profound the genius, the more profound the discovery of fate. To spiritlessness, this is naturally foolishness, but in actuality it is greatness, because no man is born with the idea of providence, and those who think that one acquires it gradually though education are greatly mistaken, although I do not thereby deny the significance of education. Not until sin is reached is providence posited. Therefore the genius has an enormous struggle to reach providence. If he does not reach it, truly he becomes a subject for the study of fate. The genius is an omnipotent Ansich [in itself] which as such would rock the whole world. For the sake of order, another figure appears along with him, namely fate. Fate is nothing. It is the genius himself who discovers it, and the more profound the genius, the more profoundly he discovers fate, because that figure is merely the anticipation of providence. If he continues to be merely a genius and turns outward, he will accomplish astonishing things; nevertheless, he will always succumb to fate, if not outwardly, so that it is tangible and visible to all, then inwardly. Therefore, a genius-existence is always like a fairy tale if in the deepest sense the genius does not turn inward into himself. The genius is able to do all things, and yet he is dependent upon an insignificance that no one comprehends, an insignificance upon which the genius himself by his omnipotence bestows omnipotent significance. Therefore, a second lieutenant, if he is a genius, is able to become an emperor and change the world, so that there becomes one empire and one emperor. But therefore, too, the army may be drawn up for battle, the conditions for the battle absolutely favorable, and yet in the next moment wasted; a kingdom of heroes may plead that the order for battle be given-but he cannot; he must wait for the fourteenth of June. And why? Because that was the date of the battle of Marengo. So all things may be in readiness, he himself stands before the legions, waiting only for the sun to rise in order to announce the time for the oration that will electrify the soldiers, and the sun may rise more glorious than ever, an inspiring and inflaming sight for all, only not for him, because the sun did not rise as glorious as this at Austerlitz, and only the sun of Austerlitz gives victory and inspiration. Thus, the inexplicable passion with which such a one may often rage against an entirely insignificant man, when otherwise he may show humanity and kindness even toward his enemies. Yes, woe unto the man, woe unto the woman, woe unto the innocent child, woe unto the beast of the field, woe unto the bird whose flight, woe unto the tree whose branch comes in his way at the moment he is to interpret his omen.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Søren Kierkegaard The Concept of Anxiety, Nichol p. 98-100 (1844)
About

Fate, World, Education, Way

“If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago, he would've thought they were birds or angels from another world.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Old and New http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21395/Old_and_New From the poems written in English

World, Angels

“Do not conceive that fine Clothes make fine Men, any more than fine feathers make fine Birds—A plain genteel dress is more admired and obtains more credit than lace & embroidery in the Eyes of the judicious and sensible.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Bushrod Washington http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-chron-1780-1783-01-15-12 (15 January 1783) 1780s

Men, Clothes

“If you fell the trees then you destroy human culture as well as the birds of paradise. People depend on the forest and the forest has always depended on us. We are as one.”

Benny Wenda (1975) West Papuan activist

As forests are cleared and species vanish, there's one other loss: a world of languages http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/08/why-we-are-losing-a-world-of-languages

People, Tree, Dependency

“The cheapness and quickness of modern methods of communication has been like a growth of wings, so that a thousand things which were thought to belong like trees in one place may travel about like birds.”

Melvil Dewey (1851–1931) American librarian and educator

"Field and Future of Traveling Libraries". Home Education Department. Bulletin. State University of New York (1901), (40).

Travel, Communication, Tree

“Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" Fragmentary Blue http://www.ketzle.com/frost/fragblue.htm", st. 1 (1923) 1920s

Flowers

“And upon a wing of abominations he shall cause desolation, even until the consummation, and that which is determined be poured upon the desolate. The Prophets, in representing kingdoms by Beasts and Birds, put their wings stretched out over any country for their armies sent out to invade and rule over that country. Hence a wing of abominations is an army of false Gods: for an abomination is often put in scripture for a false God; as where Chemosh is called the abomination of Moab, and Molech the abomination of Ammon. The meaning therefore is, that the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the sanctuary, and abolish the daily worship of the true God, and overspread the land with an army of false gods; and by setting up their dominion and worship, cause desolation to the Jews, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. For Christ tells us, that the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel was to be set up in the times of the Roman Empire, Matth.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

xxiv. 15.
Vol. I, Ch. 10: Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

God, People, Time, Christ

“All I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at one hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage; and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word. Written at the age of seventy five by me, once Hokusai, today Gwakyo Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.”

Hokusai (1760–1849) Japanese artist

On one of his pseudonom, Gyakyo Rojin. He may have said the above in his late life definitely, since he began to use the name Gwakyo Rojin in 1843.
Attributed

Age, Nature, Fish, Tree

“Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.”

Sara Teasdale There Will Come Soft Rains

"There Will Come Soft Rains"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

Spring, Tree

“If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: "The Storyteller" (1936), p. 91

Dreams, Sleep

“From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 5

Tree, Silence, Learning, Time

“London is a roost for every bird.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 11.

“The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down on the box for a chat, the sun is shining on my face — and right before our eyes, mass murder. The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

8 June 1943, p. 602
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

Women, Sun, Box

“An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,
Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,
Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all.”

John Howard Payne (1791–1852) American actor and writer

Home, Sweet Home (1822), from the opera of "Clari, the Maid of Milan", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Peace, Home, Singing

“Hey farmer, farmer,
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"Big Yellow Taxi"
Songs

Bee

“It is extraordinary that nobody nowadays under the stress of great troubles is turned into stone or a bird or a tree or some inanimate object; they used to undergo such metamorphoses in ancient times (or so they say), though whether that is myth or a true story I know not. Maybe it would be better to change one's nature into something that lacks all feeling, rather than be so sensitive to evil. Had that been possible, these calamities would in all probability have turned me to stone”

Anna Comnena book Alexiad

The Alexiad, Preface

Feeling, Nature, Tree, Evil

“The master was never impressed by diplomas or degrees. He scrutinized the person, not the certificate.
He was once heard to say, 'When you have ears to hear a bird in song, you don't need to look at its credentials.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: Anthony De Mello : Writings (1999), p. 76

Personality

“I saw, all of a sudden, an odd-looking bird making its way through the water to the opposite bank, followed by a great commotion. I found it was a domestic fowl which had managed to escape impending doom in the galley by jumping overboard and was now trying frantically to swim across. It had almost gained the bank when the clutches of its relentless pursuers closed on it, and it was brought back in triumph, gripped by the neck. I told the cook I would not have any meat for dinner. I really must give up animal food. We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us ⎯ in fact, any one who does not join in is dubbed a crank. … if, after our pity is aroused, we persist in throttling our feelings simply in order to join others in their preying upon life, we insult all that is good in us. I have decided to try a vegetarian diet.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

Life, Food, Way, Feeling

“To Indians the idea of the transmigration of the soul from animal to man, and man to animal, does not seem strange, and so from our scriptures pity for all sentient creatures has not been banished as a sentimental exaggeration. When I am in close touch with Nature in the country, the Indian in me asserts itself and I cannot remain coldly indifferent to the abounding joy of life throbbing within the soft down-covered breast of a single tiny bird.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

Life, Soul, Idea, Nature

“A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 2, member 3, subsection 6.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I

Singing

“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing, But Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

43
Stray Birds (1916)

Music, Fish, Silence, Water

“The ideal solution of the problem of transportation will be arrived at only when the complete annihilation of distance in the transmission of power in large amounts shall have become a commercial reality. That day we shall invade the domain of the bird. When the vexing problem of aerial navigation, which has defied his attempts for ages, is solved, man will advance with giant strides.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

Age, Problem, Reality

“Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don't they try to understand the song of the birds? Why do they love a night, a flower, everything which surrounds man, without attempting to understand them? Whereas where painting is concerned, they want to understand. Let them understand above all that the artist works from necessity; that he, too, is a minute element of the world to whom one should ascribe no more importance than so many things in nature which charm us but which we do not explain to ourselves. Those who attempt to explain a picture are on the wrong track most of the time. Gertrude Stein, overjoyed, told me some time ago that she had finally understood what my picture represented: three musicians. It was a still life!!”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

Love, Life, World, Flowers

“Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere. Furthermore, even if, one day at a time, you myopically inspected each wire, you still could not see why a bird would have trouble going past the wires to get anywhere. There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.”

Marilyn Frye (1941) feminist philosopher and professor

"Oppression", in Politics Of Reality – Essays In Feminist Theory (1983)

Way, Time, Past, Flying