Variant: I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Source: Monet By Himself
„I sing as the bird sings
That lives in the boughs.“
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German writer, artist, and politician 1749 - 1832
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
Bk. II, Ch. 11
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)
— James Richardson American poet 1950
Aphorism #7
Interglacial (2004)
„Without moving anything / I want to see / the way this autumn / makes the birds move.“
— Mirkka Rekola Finnish writer 1931 - 2014
From Syksy muuttaa linnut (Autumn Moves the Birds, 1961. 88 Poems, WSOY, 2000, ISBN 951-0-24783-9. Translated by Anselm Hollo).
„A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song“
— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014
Although it appears on U.S. postage featuring Angelou, this is actually a variant quote from the work of poet Joan Walsh Anglund.
Misattributed
Source: Postal Service releases Maya Angelou stamp with quote from another author, Josh Hicks, 7 April 2015, Washington Post, 9 April 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/04/07/postal-serves-releases-maya-angelou-stamp-with-quote-from-another-author/,
„Aesthetics is for painting as Ornithology is for the birds.“
— Barnett Newman American artist 1905 - 1970
Quote of Newman (1952), as cited in: C. Greig Crysler, Stephen Cairns, Hilde Heynen (2012). The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory. p. 123
1950 - 1960
— Rembrandt van rijn Dutch 17th century painter and etcher 1606 - 1669
As quoted in R.v.R. : Being an Account of the Last Years and the Death of One Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn (1930) by Hendrik Willem van Loon
undated quotes
„I think my great book is Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song.“
— Charles Hartshorne Philosopher 1897 - 2000
In Herbert F. Vetter, " Not The Average Philosopher http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/hartshorne.html", Harvard Magazine, May/June 1997, Volume 99, Number 5. Vetter was surprised by this, given Hartshorne's dozens of substantial books on theology.
— Bob Dylan American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist 1941
Interview http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/84-jul30.htm with Bert Kleinman (30 July 1984). Cf. C. S. Lewis: "People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself."
„Love birds don't always sing pretty tunes.“
— Nora Roberts American romance writer 1950
Source: Tears of the Moon
„The bird is gone, and in what meadow does it now sing?“
— Philip K. Dick, book Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Source: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
„Birds are settling down for the night, singing lullabies to their young.“
— Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Source: The Hunger Games
„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
„And the flowers sing in D minor
And the birds fly happily.“
— Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994
Spank Thru.
Song lyrics, B-sides and compilation tracks (1989-1993)
„A bird doesn't sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song“
— Joan Walsh Anglund American poet and children's book author 1926
The quote has been misattributed to Maya Angelou at times, including on U.S. postage.
This quote by Joan Walsh Anglund (1967 in her book, A Cup of Sun) has been widely used by Maya Angelou without attribution to Walsh Walsh Anglund, and wrongly misattributed to Maya Angelou many, many times, including on U.S. postage. However, the quote belongs to Joan Walsh Anglund, and is from her book "A Cup of Sun" published in 1967. However, Maya Angelou changed the pronoun "He" to "It" but quoted everything else of Joan Walsh Anglund. Why Maya Angelou never attributed her most famous quote as being Joan Walsh Anglund's is still a mystery to this day.
Source: A Cup of Sun: A Book of Poems (1967)
— Siegfried Sassoon English poet, diarist and memoirist 1886 - 1967
"Everyone Sang" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57253/everyone-sang (1919)
— Robert Frost American poet 1874 - 1963
Source: The Oven Bird (1916)
Context: There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
„Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.“
— Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Source: The Hunger Games
