Quotes about butterfly

A collection of quotes on the topic of butterfly, likeness, wing, life.

Quotes about butterfly

“Today, I went to sleep under a plum tree. There, I dreamed I was a butterfly, flying so pleasently. Then, I fell asleep, and the dream ended. Now- I have to ask myself - am I Zhuang Zi who dreamed of a butterfly? Or am I that butterfly, dreaming I am Zhuang Zi?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Dreams, Sleep, Tree, Flying

“Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

As translated by Lin Yutang
Alternative translations
Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, a veritable butterfly, enjoying itself to the full of its bent, and not knowing it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly I awoke, and came to myself, the veritable Chuang Chou. Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between me and the butterfly there must be a difference. This is an instance of transformation.
As translated by James Legge, and quoted in The Three Religions of China: Lectures Delivered at Oxford (1913) by William Edward Soothill, p. 75
Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.
One night, Zhuangzi dreamed of being a butterfly — a happy butterfly, showing off and doing things as he pleased, unaware of being Zhuangzi. Suddenly he awoke, drowsily, Zhuangzi again. And he could not tell whether it was Zhuangzi who had dreamt the butterfly or the butterfly dreaming Zhuangzi. But there must be some difference between them! This is called 'the transformation of things'.
Once upon a time, Chuang Chou dreamed that he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He didn’t know that he was Chou. Suddenly he awoke and was palpably Chou. He didn’t know whether he were Chou who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly who was dreaming that he was Chou.
Context: Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.

Dreams

“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Back To Work

“In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

World

“The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.”

Tom Robbins book Another Roadside Attraction

Source: Another Roadside Attraction

Flying

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Variant: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Source: Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times

Bee

“When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.”

Anna Pavlova (1881–1931) Russian ballet dancer

Happiness, Appearance, Success

“A soft Sea washed around the House
A Sea of Summer Air
And rose and fell the magic Planks
That sailed without a care —
For Captain was the Butterfly
For Helmsman was the Bee
And an entire universe
For the delighted crew.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Universe, Bee, Summer, Housing

“True he was a vocal miracle
But that's only secondary
It's the soul of the monarch butterfly
That I find a little bit scary”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

Soul

“Do you not know that we are worms and born
To form the angelic butterfly that soars,
Without defenses, to confront His judgment?”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto X, lines 121–129 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Context: O Christians, arrogant, exhausted, wretched,
Whose intellects are sick and cannot see,
Who place your confidence in backward steps,
Do you not know that we are worms and born
To form the angelic butterfly that soars,
Without defenses, to confront His judgment?
Why does your mind presume to flight when you
Are still like the imperfect grub, the worm
Before it has attained its final form?

Angels

“On the grave of this poor stranger, let there be neither lamp nor rose,
Let neither butterfly's wing burn nor nightingale sing.”

Nur Jahan (1577–1645) Padshah Begum of the Mughal Empire

epitaph on Nur Jahan's tomb, translated by Wheeler Thackston, quoted in "Nur Jahan", p. 275

Singing

“What does an enamored butterfly say? «Feels like I have humans in my stomach.»”

Teodor Burnar

Feeling

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

World, Depressing

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Time

“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Literature, Passion

“Suppose someone were to say: 'Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful'?!”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Zettel

Beauty, Imagination

“My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions

"Foreword", p. 3.
Source: Strong Opinions (1973)

Pleasure, Stupidity, Music

“And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy happiness.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Life, Happiness

“do what only a true artist can do… pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Beauty, Change, Motivational, Deep

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Light, Silence

“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

World

“Describe plum-blossoms?
Better than my verses… white
Wordless Butterflies”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: Japanese Haiku

“You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

World, Dreams, Sleep

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Summer

“We will all laugh at gilded butterflies.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“For mum we're fly. What mum you don't know who am I? I am Józio. And this is my sister Rózia. Now we're fly in sky! There is better than mum. See how heads in ray. Clothes with lucifer light. And on my hand as butterfly airfoil in sky we have all what we want, every day other toy, where we go here is grass, where we touch here is a flower. But we have what we want, torture us boring and trepidation. Oh mum for Your children road to heaven has been closed! On Always!”

Adam Mickiewicz book Dziady

Do mamy lecim do mamy! Cóż to, mamo nie znasz Józia? Ja to Józio ja ten samy. A to moja siostra Rózia. My teraz w raju latamy, Tam nam lepiej niż u mamy. Patrz jakie główki w promieniu, Ubiór z jutrzenki światełka, A na oboim ramieniu Jak u motylków skrzydełka, w raju wszystkiego dostatek, Co dzień to inna zabawka, gdzie stąpim wypływa trawka, gdzie dotkniem rozkwita kwiatek. Lecz choć wszystkiego dostatek dręczy nad nuda i trwoga. Ach mamo dla twoich dziatek zamknięta do nieba droga! <br class="br">Part two. <br class="br">Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_fore.htm

Children, Flowers, Sister, Light

“Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss
Poems that take a thousand years to die
But ape the immortality of this
Red label on a little butterfly.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

"A Discovery" (December 1941); published as "On Discovering a Butterfly" in The New Yorker (15 May 1943); also in Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (2000) Edited and annotated by Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle, p. 274.

Kiss

“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) <br class="br">1920s

Flowers, Bird

“With the precision of a hummingbird's heart
Was the lord of the monarch butterflies
One-time ruler of the world of art”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

World, Art, Time, Heart

“I am far from wanting to resist the demands of my time, except when they are purely a matter of fashion. Instead, I continue to hope that time itself will destroy its own offspring, perhaps quite soon. But I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it up to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or a maggot.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote in 'Caspar David Friedrich's Medieval Burials', Karl Whittington - http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring12/whittington-on-caspar-david-friedrichs-medieval-burials <br class="br">undated

Age, Hope, Fashion, Time

“Through it all I learned the value of being humble to the dust, reduced to ashes. Everyone should experience that. Before you can recognize you're somebody, you have to know you're nobody. [-] The butterfly was just a lowly worm in its beginning. The worm didn't live with the moment-to-moment expectation of sprouting wings and taking flight. He lived a useful and productive life, the life of a worm. And he had to die a worm in order to be born as an angel! The spinning of the cocoon is, in and of itself, remarkable. It is as wondrous as the emergence and first flight of the butterfly.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Life, Angels, Learning

“Harry Dresden: There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice. "For my next trick," I panted into the startled silence, "anvils."”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files, Blood Rites (2004)

Bird, Silence, Time, Night

“Even with all our technological accomplishments and urban sophistication, we consider ourselves blessed, healed in some manner, forgiven, and for a moment transported into some other world, when we catch a passing glimpse of an animal in the wild: a deer in some woodland, a fox crossing a field, a butterfly in its dancing flight southward to its wintering region, a hawk soaring in the distant sky, a hummingbird come into our garden, fireflies signaling to each other in the evening. So we might describe the thousandfold moments when we experience our meetings with the animals in their unrestrained and undomesticated status. Such incidents as these remind us that the universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not of objects to be exploited.”

Thomas Berry (1914–2009) American priest

Source: Evening Thoughts, Chapter 3, pp. 37-38

World, Communication, Universe, Distant

“There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself…. Burst your own cocoon and come out as the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Truth, Beauty, Soul, Universe

“Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind, that's running round.
Butterflies and Zebras, and moonbeams, and fairytales-
That's all she ever thinks about. Riding with the wind.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Little Wing
Song lyrics, Axis: Bold as Love (1967)

Fairytale, Thinking

“One thing I have frequently observed in children, that when they have got possession of any poor creature, they are apt to use it ill: they often torment, and treat it very roughly, young birds, butterflies, and such other poor animals which fall into their hands, and that with a seeming kind of pleasure. This I think should be watched in them, and if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts, will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men; and they will delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. Our practice takes notice of this in the exclusion of butchers from juries of life and death.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 116
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Life, Death, Men, Children

“The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Genius
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master.
"People say you are a genius. Are you?" he asked.
"You might say so." said the Master, none too modestly.
"And what makes one a genius?" "The ability to recognize." "Recognize what?"
"The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being."

Selfishness

“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Time

“People are like moths. First they are ugly and awkward, until they break out of their shell and become a beautiful butterfly.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

People, Beauty

“When a caterpillar changes into a butterfly it loses it's caterpillar life.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Life, Change

“Some people are as fragile as butterflies and sensitive and it’s your responsibility not to destroy them. Just because you can”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

People

“A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Dreams, Envy

“In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

Happiness, Happy

“It was then that she realized that the yellow butterflies preceded the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Appearance

“If the butterfly wings its way to the sweet light that attracts it, it's only becasue it doesn't know that the fire can consume it.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

Way, Light

“Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in
one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

Life, People, World, Parting

“Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

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

Source: The Complete Fairy Tales

Flowers, Freedom

“Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Flowers

“Who are you, gaijin? What do you know about honor?'
'I'm called Chocho,' Will said…
'Chocho?' Arisaka shouted, goaded beyond control. 'Butterfly? Then die, Butterfly!”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 20 http://books.google.com/books?id=pxK-jkLVHK0C&q=Sagan+%22butterflies+who+flutter+for+a+day%22&dq=Sagan+%22butterflies+who+flutter+for+a+day%22&ei=3sGoSbb2JIHCzgS05LjsAw&pgis=1

Thinking

“When all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.”

Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer

Source: Scenes from a Writer's Life

War, Beauty, Beauty

“Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average life span is a mere five to fourteen days.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: The Funny Thing Is...

Life

“He well knew his mind's natural tendency to be endlessly on a thousand subjects at once, to flit from this to that and to the next thing to no particular purpose--indeed, he called it his "butterfly mind.”

Eric Metaxas (1963) American journalist

Source: Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

Nature

“For our people, butterflies are a symbol of hope. It's said that if you capture one in your hands and whisper your dreams to it, it will carry them up to the heavens so that the wish can be granted.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

People, Dreams, Hope

“He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and…

he was a beautiful butterfly!”

Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Source: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Beauty, Way, Housing

“Bees blew like cake-crumbs through the golden air, white butterflies like sugared wafers, and when it wasn't raining a diamond dust took over which veiled and yet magnified all things”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

Source: Cider With Rosie

Bee

“Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who've been in love with the wrong man too often.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

Love, Women, Way, Change

“Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually wracked with pain.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

Love, Men, Pain, Beauty

“Do you remember how you felt at seventeen? I do and I don't (…) Imagine you came from outer space and someone showed you a butterfly and a caterpillar. Would you ever put the two of them together? That's me and my memories.”

Douglas Coupland The Gum Thief

Source: The Gum Thief

Imagination, Memory

“Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Feeling, Flowers, Nature

“Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Love, Beauty

“We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon & the liberated butterfly.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions

Death, Thinking, Loss, Despair

“Alongside the practical thought something else struggled and, like an escaped butterfly, took wing: the assurance of something wonderful awaiting her. Just around the corner……”

Norah Lofts (1904–1983) British writer

“Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Girl

“Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock if it were left undisturbed.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

“Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.”

Cornelia Funke book The Thief Lord

Source: The Thief Lord

Children

“But on paper, things can live forever.
On paper, a butterfly
never dies.”

Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming

Source: Brown Girl Dreaming

“We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: The Dead of Night

“He was comparing you to the butterflies that you both adore and cherish, and he said you were special for the same reasons: you were rare, exotic and entirely you. He said you're beautiful exactly the way are now.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: One Hundred Names

Beauty, Way

“Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

People

“She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.”

Ken Follett book The Pillars of the Earth

Source: The Pillars of the Earth

Love, Life

“Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu book Carmilla

Source: Carmilla

World, Girl, Summer

“If time and space, as sages say,
Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
No greater is than we.
So why, Love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
Has lived eternity.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Love, Feeling, Time, Sun

“Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Dance, Night

“Ballet in the air…
Twin butterflies until, twice white
They Meet, they mate”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: Japanese Haiku

“How does one become a butterfly?" she asked.
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”

Trina Paulus Hope for the Flowers

Variant: How does one become a butterfly? They have to want to learn to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
Source: Hope for the Flowers

Flying

“Come, butterfly
It's late-
We've miles to go together.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

World, Depressing

“Since when does the butterfly ask about the caterpillar?”

Cornelia Funke Reckless

Source: Reckless