“Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”
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Victor Hugo 308
French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802–1885Related quotes

Cage the Songbird, written by Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and Davey Johnstone
Song lyrics, Blue Moves (1976)

Oh that I had Wings.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I sing as the bird sings
That lives in the boughs.”
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
Bk. II, Ch. 11
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)
“How at heaven's gates she claps her wings,
The morne not waking til she sings.”
Cupid and Campaspe, Act v, Sc. 1. Compare: "Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gat sings,/And Phœbus 'gins arise", William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act ii, sc. 3.
"The Express" (l. 25–27) in Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988) edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair

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