QUOTES & PROVERBS!

Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

O birds, your perfect virtues bring,

Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight,

Your manners for your heart’s delight,

Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof,

Here weave your chamber weather-proof,

Forgive our harms, and condescend

To man, as to a lubber friend,

And, generous, teach his awkward race

Courage, and probity, and grace!

Proverbs

A bird can roost but on one branch, a mouse can drink not more than its fill from a river.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

A feather in hand is better than a bird in the air.

Birds of a feather flock together.

Each bird loves to hear himself sing.

Every bird as it is reared and the lark for the bog.

Every bird likes his own nest best.

Fine feathers make fine birds.

God creates a worm for every bird - but he does not throw it in the nest.

He has brought up a bird to pick out his own eyes.

In vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

It is a dirty bird that won't keep its own nest clean.

It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest.

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.

No need to teach an eagle to fly.

No one should live by the early bird policy without finding out whether he classifies as a bird or a worm.

Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

Old birds are hard to pluck.

One beats the bush another catches the bird.

Such bird, such egg.

The bird is known by his note, the man by his words.

The bird loves her nest.

The bird that can sing and won't sing should be made to sing.

The crow that mimics a cormorant is drowned.

The crow thinks her own bird fairest.

The crow went travelling abroad and came home just as black.

The early bird catches the worm.

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

The jaybird doesn't rob his own nest.

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.

There are no birds of this year in last year's nests.

There will be white blackbirds before an unwilling woman ties the knot.

Those who admire the freedom of birds have never built a nest.

Thou art a bitter bird, said the raven to the starling.

Though the bird may fly over your head, let it not make its nest in your hair.

To fright a bird is not the way to catch her.

Two birds disputed about a kernel when a third swooped down and carried it off.

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

You cannot catch old birds with chaff.

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but can prevent them from building their nest on it.

You may gape long enough ere a bird fall in your mouth.

Idioms

a little bird told me

bird in the hand

bird life

bird of paradise

bird of passage

bird of prey

bird on a wire

bird's eye view

birds of a feather

birds of a feather will gather together

for the birds

give someone the bird

the birds and bees

the bird has flown

Quotes

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. -Alexander Pope

A bird in the hand is a certainty, but a bird in the bush may sing. -Bret Harte

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 realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song! -John Burroughs

A forest bird never wants a cage. -Henrik Ibsen

A light broke in upon my soul. It was the carol of a bird; it ceased and then it came again the sweetest song ear ever heard. -Lord Byron

All catches alight at the spread of spring: birds crazed with flight, branches that fling leaves up to the light. -Philip Larkin

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. -James Dent

A robin redbreast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage. -William Blake

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. -D.H. Lawrence

A traveler without observation is a bird without wings. -Moslih Eddin Saadi

And if you are not a bird, then beware of coming to rest above an abyss. -Friedrich Nietzsche

Any wood thrush shows it, he sings, not to fill the world, but because he is filled. -Jane Hirshfield

Be grateful for luck.  Pay the thunder no mind. Listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody. -Eubie Blake

Birds fly over the rainbow, Why then, oh, why can't I? If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why, oh why, can't I? -Lyman Frank Baum

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings. -Rumi

Bird songs are like flowers for the ears. – Birding DVD

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? -Rose Kennedy

Birds sing the music of heaven in this world. –Issa

Birds, the free tenants of earth, air, and ocean, their forms all symmetry, their motions grace, In plumage delicate and beautiful, thick without burthen; close as fish's scales, or loose as full blown poppies on the gale; with wings that seem as they'd a soul within them, they bear their owners with such sweet enchantment. -James Montgomery

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms. -Anne Stevenson

Bluebirds are flowers given voice and wings. –Lang Elliott

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for. -Tennessee Williams

Can you imagine any better example of divine creative accomplishment that the consummate flying machine that is a bird? The skeleton, very flexible and strong, is also largely pneumatic — especially in the bigger birds. The beak, skull, feet, and all the other bones of a 25-pound pelican have been found to weigh but 23 ounces. -Guy Murchie, Jr

Carols of gladness ring from every tree. -Frances Anne Kemble

Celebrate your success and stand strong when adversity hits, for when the storm clouds come in, the eagles soar while the small birds take cover. -Unknown

Cranes carry this heavy mystical baggage. They’re icons of fidelity and happiness. The Vietnamese believe cranes cart our souls up to heaven on our wings. -Mitchell Burgess

Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. -Dale Carnegie

Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these? Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught the dialect they speak, where melodies alone are the interpreters of thought? Whose household words are songs in many keys, sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught! -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Each bird must sing with his own throat. -Henrik Ibsen

Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, to some good angel leave the rest; For Time will teach thee soon the truth, there are no birds in last year's nest! -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts. -Coleman Cox

Faith without works is like a bird without wings; though she may hop with her companions on earth, yet she will never fly with them to heaven. -Francis Beaumont

Gentle day's flower, the hummingbird competes with the stillness of the air. -Chogyam Trungpa

God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest. -P. D. James

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. -Jacques Deval

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, that from heaven or near it, pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. -P.B. Shelley

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

Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day. -Alexander Pope

He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush. -Plutarch

Here, now, were the warblers, all flitting around, feeding and chirping, a feast of beauty, dripping from the trees. –Luke Dempsey

He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again. -St. John of the Cross

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. -Langston Hughes

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all. -Emily Dickenson

How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire! -Belva Plain

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come. -Chinese Proverb

If I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything. -William Faulkner

If one cannot catch a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen. -Nikita Khrushchev

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. -Emily Dickinson

I know of only one bird, the parrot, that talks; and it can't fly very high. -Wilbur Wright

I know why the caged bird sings. -Maya Angelo

I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg. -Sir James M. Barrie

In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence. -Robert Lynd

In the next century it will be the early mechanical bird which gets the first plastic worm out of the artificial grass. -William E Bill Vaughan

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. -C. Archie Danielson

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

I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. -Charles Lindbergh

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

It happens as one sees in cages: the birds who are outside despair of ever getting in, and those within are equally desirous of getting out. -Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise. -Mark Twain

It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds. -Aesop

It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes. -Anne Baxter

It's a good thing we have gravity, or else when birds died they'd just stay right up there. -Stephen Wright

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. -Joseph Addison

I want to sing like the birds sing not worrying about who hears or what they think. -Rumi

I was always a lover of soft-winged things. -Victor Hugo

I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America. -Benjamin Franklin

I would like to paint the way a bird sings. –Claude Monet

Look at that mallard as he floats on the lake; see his elevated head glittering with emerald green, his amber eyes glancing in the light!  Even at this distance, he has marked you, and suspects that you bear no goodwill towards him, for he sees that you have a gun, and he has many a time been frightened by its report, or that of some other. The wary bird draws his feet under his body, springs upon them, opens his wings, and with loud quacks bids you farewell. -John James Audubon

Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about. -Saskya Pandita

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than these Because my love is come to me.  -Christina Rossetti

My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar. I went steady with a woodpecker till I was 21. -Bob Hope

My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather. -Loire Hartwould

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. -William Blake

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

Our avian brothers are back to roost on the first leg of their annual sojourn south. Why them and not us? Maybe it's because we humans are meant to be rooted in one spot. -Mitchell Burgess

People expect the clergy to have the grace of a swan, the friendliness of a sparrow, the strength of an eagle and the night hours of an owl and some people expect such a bird to live on the food of a canary. -Edward Jeffrey

Poor indeed is the garden in which birds find no homes. -Abram L. Urban

Seagulls, slim yachts of the element. -Robinson Jeffers

See the enfranchised bird, who wildly springs, with a keen sparkle in his glowing eye and a strong effort in his quivering wings, up to the blue vault of the happy sky. -Lady Caroline Sheridan Norton

Spirituality is like a bird: If you hold it too closely, it chokes, and if you hold it too loosely, it escapes. -Israel Salanter Lipkin

Spring would not be spring without bird songs. -Francis M. Chapman

Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown. -Henry Ward Beecher

Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies. -Edmund Burke

That little bird has chosen his shelter.  Above it are the stars and the deep heaven of worlds.  Yet he is rocking himself to sleep without caring for tomorrow's lodging, calmly clinging to his little twig, and leaving God to think for him. -Martin Luther

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you think he could never recapture The first fine careless rapture. -Robert Browning

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp. -John Berry

The birds, great Nature's happy commoners, that haunt in woods in meads; and flowery gardens, rifle the sweets and taste the choicest fruits. -Nicholas Rowe

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. -Henry David Thoreau

The crow wished everything was black, the owl, that every thing was white. -William Blake

The cuckoo is a lazy bird, she never builds a nest, she makes herself busy by singing to the rest. -Unknown Oxford Nursery Rhyme

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. -Steven Wright

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. -Henry David Thoreau

The kiss of sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth, one is nearer Spirit's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth. -Dorothy Frances Gurney

The inner - what is it? if not intensified sky, hurled through with birds and deep with the winds of homecoming. -Rainer Marie Rilke

The little birds have God for their caterer. -Cervantes

The nightingale, if he should sing by day, when every goose is cackling, would be thought no better a musician than the wren. How many things by season seasoned are to their right praise and true perfection! -William Shakespeare

The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings. -James Matthew Barrie

The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind. -Carly Simon

The sparrows are preparing for winter, each one dressed in a plain brown coat and singing a cheerful song. -Charles Kuralt

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 realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song! -John Burroughs

There are joys which long to be ours. Spirit sends 10,000 truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet. - Henry Ward Beecher

There are 2 lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots. The other is wings. -Hodding Carter, Jr.

There are no birds in last year's nest. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before. -Robert Lynd

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. -Izaak Walton

Through the night a great many kinds of birds perch on a tree but in the morning they fly in all the 10 directions. Why should we lament for that? -Chanakya

To me, the garden is a doorway to other worlds; one of them, of course, is the world of birds.  The garden is their dinner table, bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries. -Anne Raver

Two birds fly past. They are needed somewhere. -Robert Bly

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. -Henry Van Dyke

What is joy? It is a bird that we all want to catch. It is the same bird that we all love to see flying -Sri Chinmoy

We never miss the music until the sweet voiced bird has flown away. -O. Henry

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry. -John Webster

When birds burp, it must taste like bugs. -Bill Watterson

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. -Richard C. Cushing

When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast. -John Burroughs

Words are heavy like rocks...they weigh you down. If birds could talk, they wouldn't be able to fly. -Marilyn, from the TV show Northern Exposure

You are the miracle bird, risen from the memory of the Sun's Womb in the heart of the Earth. Flutter, flutter on, my heart. -Mahmud Kianush

You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren. -William Henry Hudson

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