Best 1556 quotes in «bird quotes» category

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.

Not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.

Now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.

Now came still evening on; and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad: Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to they grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.

Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Now that we have learned to fly the air like birds, swim under water like fish, we lack one thing - to learn to live on earth as human beings.

Now we're like planets, holding to each other from a great distance. [...] Now we're hundreds of miles apart, our short arms keep us lonely, no one hears what's in my head. [...] It's March, even the birds don't know what to do with themselves.

Observe everything silently, like a little bird! This invites the angels of wisdom!

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

Occasionally, some sitcoms still stereotype women - the old dragon or the dolly bird - but on the whole we've moved away from that.

Of all types of birds, birds of prey have always fascinated people.

Of bird and prophet and his light shall lead On through the darkness to eventual light, To undiscovered wealth, to newer need . . .

Of course, living in an all-glass house has its disadvantages...but you should see the birds smack it.

Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say, Birds chuse their mates and couple too this day: But by their flight I never can devine When I shall couple with my valentine.

Oh, nature's noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from the parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men.

Oh it's the bingo playing wizard I love you guys so much, but not as much as my bird and my bingo!

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.

Old birds like Orlovius are wonderfully easy to lead by the beak, because a combination of decency and sentimentality is exactly equal to being a fool.

Old age is a flight of small cheeping birds skimming bare trees above a snow glaze.

Okay. I picked up a movie to watch tonight. You can watch it with me if you like. It's a chick movie. Merri Lee said that means girls like it, not that there are small birds in it.

Old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird's chirp.

Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there's a great feeling of: 'Hey, I'm free as a bird.'

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird. And all a wonder and a wild desire.

O lovely river of Yvette! O darling river! like a bride, Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide. O lovely river Yvette! O darling stream! on balanced wings The wood-birds sang the chansonnette That here a wandering poet sings.

Once I asked Teichman what he thought of Bird's chess: "Same as his health," he replied, "always alternating between being dangerously ill and dangerously well.

Once you develop the practice of smiling, you may not need a reminder. You will smile as soon as you hear a bird singing or see the sunlight streaming through the window.

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth!

Once a bird kid, always a bird kid. - maximum ride series

Once more I realized to what an extent earthly happiness is made to the measure of man. It is not a rare bird which we must pursue at one moment in heaven, at the next in our minds. Happiness is a domestic bird found in our own courtyards.

One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters.

One day I'm going to write a book about osprey. It has really gotten deep into my bloodstream. So when you ask what else I do, I feel like this is part of what I do....is to watch these birds.

One day at Princeton, I noticed there were dead birds on the pavement between the campus buildings, where very large trees were. It turns out it was DDT. At the time, in the early '50s, no one thought DDT was dangerous to anybody but insects. I went down to the Daily Princetonian, the college paper, and tried to persuade them to do a story. They said, "Naw, there's nothing wrong." But that taught me a very important lesson. One, that newspaper people can get very jaded. Second, that you might know something, like an expert chemistry professor, you are not going to apply what you know.

One often reads about the art of conversation-how it's dying or what's needed to make it flourish, or how rare good ones are. But wouldn't you agree that the infinitely more valuable rara avis [rare bird] is a good listener.

One thing that influenced me in the States when I was doing this recording was American people feeding me things like Arnold Dreyblatt, even things I should've heard back in New Zealand like Peter Jefferies and Jono Lonie 'At Swim 2 Birds.

One of the bibles of my youth was 'Birds of the West Indies,' by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, 'My God, that's the dullest name I've ever heard,' so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one.

One of the things I miss about teaching is that students would tell me what I ought to read. One of my students, back in the 1960s, put me onto Borges, and I remember another mentioning Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two-Birds in the same way.

On the contrary, there is a considerable body of evidence that these fossil traces, known as 'dino-fuzz', have nothing to do with bird feathers... I, and many others, do not find any credible evidence that those structures represent protofeathers.

On the holy boughs of the Celestial Tree High up in the heavenly fields, Beyond terrestrial desire My soul-bird a warm nest has built.

Openly I whispered and breathed a big gulp of air and saw all the beautiful trees and birds which surrounded me. The morning was beautiful like your smile.

Opportunity is a bird that never perches.

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking bird's throat, the musical shuttle, . . . . A reminiscence sing.

Our little kinsmen after rain In plenty may be seen, a pink and pulpy multitude The tepid ground upon; A needless life if seemed to me Until a little bird As to a hospitality Advanced and breakfasted.

Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace.

Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches.

Owls are known as lonely birds; but it is not known that they have the forest as their best friend!

Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of 'paleobabble' is going to change that.

People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

People are conditioned to just you know, like, you know we're like little birdies going to the bird feeder you know, or the little cows going to the salt lick. We just like what we've seen before.