“It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.”
Aesop book The Jay and the Peacock
The Jay and the Peacock.
Source: Vision, 1982, p. 27
“It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.”
Aesop book The Jay and the Peacock
The Jay and the Peacock.
“Fine feathers, they say, make fine birds.”
Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733–1812) Irish playwright and librettist
The Padlock (1768).
Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "The Power of Silence" (Chapter 18)
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight
Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) American aviation pioneer
Speech to the Western Society of Engineers (18 September 1901); published in the Journal of the Western Society of Engineers (December 1901); republished with revisions by the author for the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (1902) http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/Aeronautical.html <br class="br">Context: The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. As a matter of fact this is a very small part of its mental labor. To even mention all the things the bird must constantly keep in mind in order to fly securely through the air would take a considerable part of the evening. If I take this piece of paper, and after placing it parallel with the ground, quickly let it fall, it will not settle steadily down as a staid, sensible piece of paper ought to do, but it insists on contravening every recognized rule of decorum, turning over and darting hither and thither in the most erratic manner, much after the style of an untrained horse. Yet this is the style of steed that men must learn to manage before flying can become an everyday sport. The bird has learned this art of equilibrium, and learned it so thoroughly that its skill is not apparent to our sight. We only learn to appreciate it when we try to imitate it.
“Birds of a feather flock together”
Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Source: Alice in Wonderland
“Birds of a feather will gather together.”
Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy
Section 1, member 1, subsection 2, Love's Beginning, Object, Definition, Division.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III
Attar of Nishapur (1145–1230) Persian Sufi poet
"In the Dead of Night" as translated by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut in Perfume of the Desert