VS Language--Bird quotes

Lying under an acacia tree with the sound of the dawn around me, I realized more clearly the facts that man should never overlook: that the construction of an airplane, for instance, is simple when compared [with] a bird; that airplanes depend on an advanced civilization, and that were civilization is most advanced, few birds exist. I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.

— Charles A. Lindbergh, interview shortly before his death, 1974.


Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem. . . . It is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.

— W. H. Hudson

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

— Henry David Thoreau

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds—how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives—and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

— John Burroughs, 'Birds and Poets,' 1887.

We are all pirates at heart. There is not one of us who hasn't had a little larceny in his soul. And which one of us wouldn't soar if God had thought there was merit in the idea? So, when we see one of those great widespread pirates soaring across the grain of sea winds we thrill, and we long, and, if we are honest, we curse that we must be men every day. Why not one day a bird! There's an idea, now, one day out of seven a pirate in the sky. What puny power a man can attain by comparison. Compare a 747 with a bird and blush!

— Roger Caras, 'Birds and Flight,' 1971

" . . . there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."

--Willa Cather, 'O' Pioneers!'

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will . . ."

--Charlotte Bronte, 'Jane Eyre'

"Why should I disguise what you know so well, but what the crowd never dream of? We companies are all birds of prey; mere birds of prey. The only question is, whether in serving our own turn, we can serve yours too; whether in double-lining our own nest, we can put a single living into yours."

--Charles Dickens, 'Martin Chuzzlewit'

Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere.

--H. Rider Haggard, 'King Solomon's Mines'

"Do you know," Peter asked "why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories."

--James M. Barrie, 'Peter Pan'

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

--Chinese Proverb

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.

~Henry Ward Beecher

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. ~Author Unknown


God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. ~Jacques Deval, Afin de vivre bel et bien


Use the talents you possess - for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best. ~Henry Van Dyke