Quotes about birds

A collection of quotes on the topic of bird.

„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.

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

— Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy 1890 - 1995

Singing, Feeling, People

„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]

Rage, Truth

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

— Andrew Biersack American singer-songwriter 1990

„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 feminist philosopher and professor 1941

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

Flying, Past, Time, Way

„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 Canadian musician 1943

"Big Yellow Taxi"
Songs

Bee

„Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security. For birds and animals, as for poor men, winter is another matter. Rabbits, like most wild animals, suffer hardship.“

— Richard Adams, book Watership Down

Watership Down (1972)

Men, Feeling, Sense, Winter

„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 American poet 1874 - 1963

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

Flowers

„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 British poet 1852 - 1921

" 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

Joy, Flowers, Star, Smile

„The sun and moon, O Lord, are Thy lamps; the firmament Thy salver; the orbs of the stars the pearls encased in it.
The perfume of the sandal is Thine incense, the wind is Thy fan, all the forests are Thy flowers, O Lord of light.
What worship is this, O Thou destroyer of birth? Unbeaten strains of ecstasy are the trumpets of Thy worship.
Thou has a thousand eyes and yet not one eye; Thou host a thousand forms and yet not one form;
Thou hast a thousand stainless feet and yet not one foot; Thou hast a thousand organs of smell and yet not one organ. I am fascinated by this play of 'l hine.
The light which is in everything is Chine, O Lord of light.
From its brilliancy everything is illuminated;
By the Guru's teaching the light becometh manifest.
What pleaseth Thee is the real worship.
O God, my mind is fascinated with Thy lotus feet as the bumble-bee with the flower; night and day I thirst for them.
Give the water of Thy favour to the Sarang (bird) Nanak, so that he may dwell in Thy Name.“

— Nanak Founder of Sikhism 1469 - 1539

Guru Nanak Dev ji (1469 - 1539)

Night, Sun, Bee, Water

„Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.“

— Francis William Bourdillon British poet 1852 - 1921

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p