Quotes about fly
page 9

James Thomas Fields photo
Robert Southey photo

“Four o’clock strikes,
There’s a rising hum,
Then the doors fly open,
The children come.”

Henry Summers (1911–2005) British civil servant

"Out of School"

John Milton photo
William Moulton Marston photo

“Women now fly heavy planes successfully; they help build planes, do mechanics' work. In England they've taken over a large share of all material labor in fields and factories; they've taken over police and home defence duties. In China a corps of 300,000 women under the supreme command of Madame Chiang Kai-shek perform the dangerous function of saving lives and repairing damage after Japanese air raids. This huge female strong- arm squad is officered efficiently by 3,000 women. Here in this country we've started a Women's Auxilary Army and Navy Corps that will do everything men soldiers and sailors do except the actual fighting. Prior to the First World War nobody believed that women could perform these feats of physical strength. But they're performing them now and thinking nothing of it. In this far worse: war, women will develop still greater female power; by the end of the war that traditional description the weaker sex" will be a joke-it will cease to have any meaning.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

As interviewed by Richard, Olive, "Our Women are Our Future": Sylvia Family Circle, (Aug 14, 1944) 14-17, 19 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.32.

Haruki Murakami photo
Gerard Bilders photo

“For me Ruisdael is the true man of poetry, the real poet. There is a world of sad, serious and beautiful thoughts in his paintings. They possess a soul and a voice that sounds deep, sad and dignified. They tell melancholic stories, speak of gloomy things and are witnesses of a sad spirit. I see him wander, turned in on himself, his heart opened to the beauties of nature, in accordance with his mood, on the banks of that dark gray stream that rustles and splashes along the reeds. And those skies!... In the skies one is completely free, untied, all of himself.... what a genius he is! He is my ideal and almost something perfect. When it storms and rains, and heavy, black clouds fly back and forth, the trees whiz and now and then a strange light breaks through the air, and falls down here and there on the landscape, and there is a heavy voice, a grand mood in nature; that is what he paints; that is what he [Ruysdael] is imaging.”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

(version in original Dutch / citaat van Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands:) Ruisdael is voor mij de ware man der poezië, de echte dichter. Daar is een wereld van droevige, ernstige schone gedachten in zijn schilderijen. Ze hebben een ziel en een stem, die diep, treurig, deftig klinkt. Zij doen weemoedige verhalen, spreken van sombere dingen, getuigen van een treurige geest. Ik zie hem dwalen, in zichzelf gekeerd, het hart geopend voor de schoonheden der natuur, in overeenstemming met zijn gemoed, aan de oevers van die donkere grauwe stroom die ritselt en plast langs het riet. En die luchten!.. .In de luchten is men geheel vrij, ongebonden, geheel zichzelf.. ..welke een genie is hij [Ruisdael]! Hij is mijn ideaal en bijna iets volmaakts.Als het stormt en regent, en zware, zwarte wolken heen en weer vliegen, de bomen suizen en nu en dan een wonderlijk licht door de lucht breekt en hier en daar op het landschap neervalt, en er een zware stem, een grootse stemming in de natuur is, dat schildert hij, dat geeft hij weer.
Source: 1860's, Vrolijk Versterven' (from Bilders' diary & letters), pp. 51+52, - quote from Bilders' diary, 24 March 1860, written in Amsterdam

John Updike photo
Iain Banks photo
Robert Silverberg photo

“Then once more comes deep grief to their hearts, when he comrades sat in their places and no lion's hide was there to see, but the empty seat upon that mighty thwart. Loyal Aeacides weeps, the heart of Philoctetes is sad, brother Pollux with his dear Castor makes lament. The ship is flying fast, and still all cry "Hercules," all cry "Hylas," but the names are lost in the middle of the sea.”
Hic vero ingenti repetuntur pectora luctu, ut socii sedere locis nullaeque leonis exuviae tantique vacant vestigia transtri. flet pius Aeacides, maerent Poeantia corda, ingemit et dulci frater cum Castore Pollux. omnis adhuc vocat Alciden fugiente carina, omnis Hylan, medio pereunt iam nomina ponto.

Source: Argonautica, Book III, Lines 719–725

T.S. Eliot photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Dave Matthews photo

“And when you wake, you will fly away, holding tight to the legs of all your angels. Goodbye, my love, into your blue, blue eyes.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Baby Blue
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (2009)

Barry Goldwater photo
Norman Spinrad photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Edward Lear photo

“Calico Pie,
The little Birds fly
Down to the calico tree,
Their wings were blue,
And they sang "Tilly-loo!"
Till away they flew,—
And they never came back to me!”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

Calico Pie http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/calico.html, st. 1 (1871).

Heather Brooke photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“In April 1946, when I came to Hughes Aircraft to institute high-technology research and development, it was far from the place it was to become. Howard Hughes, I was informed, rarely came around. When he did show up, it was to take up one or another trivial issue. He would toss off detailed directions, for instance, on what to do next about a few old airplanes decaying out in the yard or what kind of seat covers to buy for the company-owned Chevrolets, or he would say he wanted some pictures of clouds taken from an airplane. An accountant from Hughes Tool Co. ((started by Howard's father)) had the title of general manager but was there only to sign checks. A few of Howard's flying buddies were on the payroll, using assorted fanciful titles like some in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, but apparently did next to nothing. A lawyer was on hand to process contracts, but there were practically none. In addition to the Spruce Goose flying freighter, a mammoth eight-engine plywood seaplane that barely managed to fly even once, there was an experimental Navy reconnaissance plane under development (which, with Hughes at the controls, later crashed, almost killing him). The contracts for both planes had been canceled. Perhaps, I said to myself, this is one of those unforeseeable lucky opportunities. Why not use Hughes Aircraft as a base to create a new and needed defense electronics supplier?”

Simon Ramo (1913–2016) Father of the ICBM

MEMOIRS OF AN ICBM PIONEER Simon Ramo broke with Howard Hughes, then built TRW, the company that developed the U.S. missile. He says what went right then would go wrong today. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1988/04/25/70453/index.htm in FORTUNE Magazine, April 25, 1988

Don Henley photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Claude Bernard photo

“I have redeemed myself by giving belief to the wings of the young. Blessed are those who believe, for indeed they shall fly.”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Old Boreal Owl prayer, Grimble's last words; Chapter Twenty-two: "The Shape of the Wind", p. 162
The Capture (2003)

George William Curtis photo

“Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense!' was the reply, 'that's all very well in theory, but it doesn't work so. The returning of slaves amounts to nothing in fact. All that is obsolete. And why make all this row? Can't you hush? We've nothing to do with slavery, we tell you. We can't touch it; and if you persist in this agitation about a mere form and theory, why, you're a set of pestilent fanatics and traitors; and if you get your noisy heads broken, you get just what you deserve'. And they quoted in the faces of the abolitionists the words of Governor Edward Everett, who was not an authority with them, in that fatal inaugural address, 'The patriotism of all classes of citizens must be invited to abstain from a discussion which, by exasperating the master, can have no other effect than to render more oppressive the condition of the slave'. It was as if some kindly Pharisee had said to Christ, 'Don't try to cast out that evil spirit; it may rend the body on departing'. Was it not as if some timid citizen had said, 'Don't say hard things of intemperance lest the dram-shops, to spite us, should give away the rum'? And so the battle raged. The abolitionists dashed against slavery with passionate eloquence like a hail of hissing fire. They lashed its supporters with the scorpion whip of their invective. Ambition, reputation, ortune, ease, life itself they threw upon the consuming altar of their cause. Not since those earlier fanatics of freedom, Patrick Henry and James Otis, has the master chord of human nature, the love of liberty, been struck with such resounding power. It seemed in vain, so slowly their numbers increased, so totally were they outlawed from social and political and ecclesiastical recognition. The merchants of Boston mobbed an editor for virtually repeating the Declaration of Independence. The city of New York looked on and smiled while the present United States marshal insulted a woman as noble and womanly and humane as Florence Nightingale. In other free States men were flying for their lives; were mobbed, seized, imprisoned, maimed, murdered; but still as, in the bitter days of Puritan persecution in Scotland, the undaunted voices of the Covenanters were heard singing the solemn songs of God that echoed and re-echoed from peak to peak of the barren mountains, until the great dumb wilderness was vocal with praise — so in little towns and great cities were heard the uncompromising voices of these men sternly intoning the majestic words of the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence, which echoed from solitary heart to heart until the whole land rang with the litany of liberty.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Vanna Bonta photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“The cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained. We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.”
Contra primus itaque causas pugnare debemus; causa autem iracundiae opinio iniuriae est, cui non facile credendum est. Ne apertis quidem manifestisque statim accedendum; quaedam enim falsa ueri speciem ferunt. Dandum semper est tempus: ueritatem dies aperit.

De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 22, line 2
Alternate translation: Time discovers truth. (translator unknown).
Moral Essays

Phaedrus photo
Elton John photo

“Sometimes when I'm flying over the Alps I think, 'that's like all the cocaine I sniffed.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Sixty things for Sir Elton's 60th (2007)

Isaac Watts photo

“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Psalm 90 st. 5.
1710s, "Our God, our help in ages past" (1719)

Abbie Hoffman photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“4522. The Fly, that playeth too long in the Candle, singeth her Wings at last.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Charles Lindbergh photo
Gerard Manley Hopkins photo

“Only when I smell the earth upon my face, will I ever be free, to fly from this place.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Out Seeing The Fields"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

Octavio Paz photo

“willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:
the calm course of a star
or the spring, appearing without urgency,
water behind a stillness of closed eyelids
flowing all night and pouring out prophecies,
a single presence in the procession of waves
wave over wave until all is overlapped,
in a green sovereignty without decline
a bright hallucination of many wings
when they all open at the height of the sky, course of a journey among the densities
of the days of the future and the fateful
brilliance of misery shining like a bird
that petrifies the forest with its singing
and the annunciations of happiness
among the branches which go disappearing,
hours of light even now pecked away by the birds,
omens which even now fly out of my hand, an actual presence like a burst of singing,
like the song of the wind in a burning building,
a long look holding the whole world suspended,
the world with all its seas and all its mountains,
body of light as it is filtered through agate,
the thighs of light, the belly of light, the bays,
the solar rock and the cloud-colored body,
color of day that goes racing and leaping,
the hour glitters and assumes its body,
now the world stands, visible through your body,
and is transparent through your transparency”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Sun Stone (1957)

Brandon Boyd photo

“When we get there,
We're going to fly so far away
Making sure to laugh while we experience
Anti-gravity.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. (1997)

Regina Spektor photo
Edward German photo
George Bird Evans photo
John Donne photo
Gene Wolfe photo

“We can dive to the bottom of the sea and some say NASA will fly us to the stars, and I have known men to plunge into the past—or the future—and drown. But there's one place where we can't go. We can't go where we are already. We can't go home, because our minds, and our hearts, and our immortal souls are already there there.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"Kevin Malone", New Terrors (1980), ed. Ramsey Campbell, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Endangered Species (1989), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“For those that run away and fly,
Take place at least o' the enemy.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto III, line 609
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Eddie Mair photo

“… and if you want to hear more of that interview, fly to America and watch TV on Sunday night.”

Eddie Mair (1965) Scottish broadcaster

Mair (2003) cited in: " Eddie Mair again http://quernstone.com/archives/2003/06/eddie-mair-agai.html" in: The Daily Grind, Jonathan Sanderson’s weblog June 5, 2003.
From PM and Broadcasting House

Francis Bacon photo
Elinor Glyn photo

“Prudent readers will do well to hold Three Weeks at arm's length, unless they want to be cut by flying adjectives.”

Elinor Glyn (1864–1943) British novelist and scriptwriter

S. J. Perelman "Cloudland Revisited: Tuberoses and Tigers", in The Most of S. J. Perelman (London: Mandarin, [1979] 1992) p. 282.
Criticism

Michael Chabon photo
Gerald of Wales photo

“Although he was completely illiterate, if he looked at a book which was incorrect, which contained some false statement, or which aimed at deceiving the reader, he immediately put his finger on the offending passage. If you asked him how he knew this, he said that a devil first pointed out the place with its finger…When he was harried beyond endurance by these unclean spirits, Saint John’s Gospel was placed on his lap, and then they all vanished immediately, flying away like so many birds. If the Gospel were afterwards removed and the History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth put there in its place, just to see what would happen, the demons would alight all over his body, and on the book, too, staying there longer than usual and being even more demanding.”
Librum quoque mendosum, et vel falso scriptum, vel falsum etiam in se continentem inspiciens, statim, licet illiteratus omnino fuisset, ad locum mendacii digitum ponebat. Interrogatus autem, qualiter hoc nosset, dicebat daemonem ad locum eundem digitum suum primo porrigere…Contigit aliquando, spiritibus immundis nimis eidem insultantibus, ut Evangelium Johannis ejus in gremio poneretur: qui statim tanquam aves evolantes, omnes penitus evanuerunt. Quo sublato postmodum, et Historia Britonum a galfrido Arthuro tractata, experiendi causa, loco ejusdem subrogata, non solum corpori ipsius toti, sed etiam libro superposito, longe solito crebrius et taediosius insederunt.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Book 1, chapter 5, pp. 117-18.
Itinerarium Cambriae (The Journey Through Wales) (1191)

Mary Mapes Dodge photo
Cole Porter photo

“The chimpanzees in the zoos do it,
Some courageous kangaroos do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love. I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it,
Even eagles as they fly do it,
Let's do it, let's fall in love.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love"; an earlier variant, rather than "Even eagles...": "Heavy hippopotami do it..."
Paris (1928)

Samuel Johnson photo

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1754, p. 72 (n. 4)
Referring to critics
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Robert E. Howard photo

“When I die
let the black rag fly
raven falling
from the sky.”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

"Black Flag" in Collected Poems (1983)

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi photo

“I do not believe in psychology. And I believe in the power of God to heal minds without taking drugs that foul the mind and the body and the spirit. Taking drugs helps demons to control you and the only way to heal the trauma is to do Yogic Flying for three hours every day.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) Inventor of Transcendental Meditation, musician

Quoted from: w:Larry King Weekend, Interview With Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (2002-05-12) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/12/lklw.00.html

Vytautas Juozapaitis photo
Katie Melua photo
Walter Scott photo

“Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Canto V, stanza 10.
The Lady of the Lake http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3011 (1810)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation"…In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003…the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once.That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible…Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer…In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally…Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country…And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Kent Hovind photo
Marcus Manilius photo

“The hours fly around in a circle.”
Volat hora per orbem.

Book I, line 641.
Astronomica

Britney Spears photo

“Every time I try
To fly, I fall.
Without my wings,
I feel so small.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

"Everytime"
Lyrics, "In The Zone" (2003)

Arnold Schoenberg photo

“I find above all that the expression, "atonal music," is most unfortunate — it is on a par with calling flying "the art of not falling," or swimming "the art of not drowning."”

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austrian-American composer

"Hauer's Theories" (Notes of November 1923), in Style and Idea (1985), p. 210
1920s

Bruce Palmer Jr. photo
John Fante photo
Thomas Gray photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo
François Fénelon photo
Jack London photo
Sergey Lavrov photo

“We think that additional steps, including the cancellation of the no-fly zone, should be taken.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

Time to abolish no-fly zone over Libya, (September 2011). http://rt.com/politics/official-word/lavrov-us-adress-libya-511/

“I was shamed into helping the unborn after 12 years of silence, in 1986. Since then, my only client has been the unborn. I don't work for a movement. I don't work for a party. I don't work for candidates. I work for the unborn, and I don't give a flying flick about what people want to do on paper with bylaws, and all that kind of stuff, because it's just like the Pharisees, who had all their rules about the Sabbath, but they didn't know that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath! I will stand for the unborn, and I will not relent! I don't know Mr. Clymer, but Howard Phillips has lost ALL of my respect, because he stands for people who want to kill ONE, only ONE, innocent child, and that's all that counts! If you want ONE innocent child, GO with this man, but I'll tell you what- I've got my paperwork filled out. All it lacks is my signature, and my wife's signature, and we're the hell out of here, if you vote to stay with a national party that will put up with ONE dead baby, much less many thousands of dead babies. And you sir [pointing at Jim Clymer] need to repent! Because the blood will be on your hands when you stand before God. You won't be able to argue about procedural votes, and keeping the party together before God! You'll be standing there quaking in your boots, wishing you'd washed yourself in the blood of the Lamb. That's all I've got to say…The only thing that matters to me is doing my job to stop the killing of the unborn.”

Paul deParrie (1949–2006) American activist

The Last Words of Paul deParrie http://www.constitutionpartyoregon.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=111&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

“A fly was very close to being called a "land," cause that's what they do half the time.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Do You Believe in Gosh?

John Carpenter photo
Robert E. Howard photo

“Mingle my dust with the burning brand,
Scatter it free to the sky
Fling it wide on the ocean’s sand,
From peaks where the vultures fly.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (August 28, 1925)
Letters

Taylor Swift photo

“Fly hence, shadows, that do keep,
Watchful sorrows, charmed in sleep.”

John Ford (dramatist) (1586–1639) dramatist

Act V, sc. i.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)

Manu Chao photo

“They call me the disappeared
That who when he arrives he is already gone
Flying I come, flying I go
Hastily, hastily to a lost course
When they search for me I am never there
When they find me he is not actually me
The one they have in front
Because I already moved along

They call me the disappeared
Ghost that never is to be found
They call me the ungrateful
But this is not the truth
I carry in my body a pain
That don't let me breathe
I carry in my body a curse
That always brings me to walk on”

Manu Chao (1961) French Spanish singer, guitarist and record producer

Me llaman el desaparecido
Que cuando llega ya se ha ido
Volando vengo, volando voy
Deprisa, deprisa a rumbo perdido
Cuando me buscan nunca estoy
Cuando me encuentran yo no soy
El que está enfrente porque ya
Me fui corriendo más allá

Me dicen el desaparecido
Fantasma que nunca está
Me dicen el desagradecido
Pero esa no es la verdad
Yo llevo en el cuerpo un dolor
Que no me deja respirar
Llevo en el cuerpo una condena
Que siempre me echa a caminar
Desaparecido https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qew9cYR3t0g.
Clandestino (1998)

Dejan Stojanovic photo
John Mayer photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“I fly through memory to find a newborn love.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Ghazal of Love http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21368/Ghazal_of_Love
From the poems written in English

Michael Moorcock photo
Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Ian Paisley photo
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux photo

“Of all the creatures that creep, swim, or fly,
Peopling the earth, the waters, and the sky,
From Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan,
I really think the greatest fool is man.”

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic

De tous les animaux qui s'élèvent dans l'air,
Qui marchent sur la terre, ou nagent dans la mer,
De Paris au Pérou, du Japon jusqu'à Rome,
Le plus sot animal, à mon avis, c'est l'homme.
Satire 8, l. 1
Satires (1716)

Koichi Tohei photo
Herman Melville photo

“In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, — even though it be covertly, and by snatches.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Since at least 1954 this has also been published at times as "Truth is forced to fly like a sacred white doe…", apparently a typographical error.
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)