Bird and Parrot Related Quotations

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719) 'The Spectator'

It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC)

Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages.
Spiro Theodore Agnew (1918 - 1996)

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali (1942 - )

I know why the caged bird sings.
Maya Angelou (1928 - )

One swallow does not make a summer.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

But the moment a bird was dead, no matter how beautiful it had been in life, the pleasure of possession became blunted for me.
John James Audubon (1785 - 1851)

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.
James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for faith is necessary to have wings.
James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.
Bible, Matthew viii. 20.

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 (1923 - 1985)

The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.
Eric Berne (1910 - 1970)

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 (1584 - 1616)

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 (1813 - 1887)

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.
Georges Bernanos (1888 - 1948)

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!
William Blake (1757 - 1827)

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
William Blake (1757 - 1827)

A robin red breast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
William Blake 'Auguries of Innocence' (1757 - 1827)

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird. And all a wonder and a wild desire.
Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

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 (1837 - 1921), Birds and Poets, 1887

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 (1837 - 1921)

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
Dale Carnegie (1888 - 1955)

There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,Tomorrow, just you wait and see.
Nat Burton, White Cliffs of Dover (song, 1941)

What law, what reason can deny that gift so sweet, so natural that God has given a stream, a fish, a beast, a bird?
Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600 - 1681)

Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist.
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)

A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.
Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924)

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.
Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924)

I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night.
Marie Corelli (1855 - 1924)

Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse; but talking is not always to converse, not more distinct from harmony divine, the constant creaking of a country sign.
William Cowper (1731 - 1800)

All the wildlife of the woods, the insects, birds, and animals, are well aware of your presence no matter how softly you may tread, and they follow your every move although you cannot see them.
Thalassa Cruso (1909-1997)

Today I am sure no one needs to be told that the more birds a yard can support, the fewer insects there will be to trouble the gardener the following year.
Thalassa Cruso (1909-1997)

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
Edward Estlin Cummings (1894 - 1962)

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 James Cardinal Cushing (1895 - 1970)

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.
Jacques Deval (1895 - 1972)

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Must, bid the Morn awake!
Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's.
For that good bishop's sake
Get up and let us see
What beauty it shall be
That Fortune us assigns.
Michael Drayton (1563 - 1631)

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 (September - 1962)

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.
Billy Graham (1918 - )

When you have shot one bird flying, you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways, but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961) 'Fathers and Sons'

We never miss the music until the sweet voiced bird has flown away.
O. Henry (1862 - 1910)

God gives every bird it's food, but he doesn't throw it into it's nest.
J.G. Holland (1819 -1881)

You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren.
William Henry Hudson (1841 - 1922)

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.
William Henry Hudson 'Green Mansions' (1841 - 1922)

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)

A forest bird never wants a cage.
Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906)

Eric Clapton always wanted to come out onstage with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder.
Neil Innes (1944 - )

Yeah, for some reason parrots have to bite me. That's their job. I don't know why that is. They've nearly torn my nose off. I've had some really bad parrot bites.
Steve Irwin (1962 - 2006)

I'm a parrot. I can pick up an accent and just do it.
Brion James (1945 - 1999)

God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.
Phyllis Dorothy James (1920 - )

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 (1542 - 1591)

O fret not after knowledge -- I have none, and yet my song comes native with the warmth. O fret not after knowledge -- I have none, and yet the Evening listens.
John Keats (1795 - 1821)

I have always believed that God never gives a cross to bear larger than we can carry. No matter what, he wants us to be happy, not sad. birds sing after a storm. Why shouldn't we?
Rose Kennedy (1890 - 1995)

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?
Rose Kennedy (1890 - 1995)

If one cannot catch a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen.
Nikita Khrushchev (1894 - 1971)

Father in Heaven! When the thought of thee wakes in our hearts let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Harper Lee 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1926 - )

Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.
David Letterman (1947 - )

I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
Charles Lindbergh (1902 - 1974)

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 (1807 - 1882)

A good servant is a real godsend, but truly this is a rare bird in the land.
Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)

I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Birds of the air will tell of murders past.
I am asham'd to hear such fooleries!
Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593)

Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
Bernard Meltzer (1917 - 1998)

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 (1533 - 1592)

And if you are not a bird, then beware of coming to rest above an abyss.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked
Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)

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 (1182 - 1251)

How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire!
Belva Plain (1919 - )

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.
Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)

The parrot's so funny. He imitates me and I don't even realize he's doing it. I'm walking around the house talking to myself and whistling and the next day he's said something I've said... it's scary you know?
Mick Ralphs (1944 - )

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
William Shakespeare 'Romeo and Juliet' (1564 - 1616)

The lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.
William Shakespeare 'Sonnet 29' (1564 - 1616)

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

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 that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

In almost everything that touches our everyday life on earth, God is pleased when we're pleased. He wills that we be as free as birds to soar and sing our maker's praise without anxiety.
A. W. Tozer (1897 - 1963)

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have lived well
Author Unknown

Use whatever talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sing the best.
Henry Van Dyke (1852 – 1933)

To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.
Gore Vidal (1925 - )

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 (1593 - 1683)

When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.
Bill Watterson 'Calvin and Hobbes' (1958 - )

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.
John Webster (1580 - 1634)

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.
Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983)

The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears -- as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959)

I know of only one bird - the parrot - that talks; and it can't fly very high.
Wilbur Wright (1867 - 1912)

Bird and Parrot Related Proverbs

The early bird gets the worm.
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Each bird loves to hear himself sing.
Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719) 'The Spectator'

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC)

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.
Spiro Theodore Agnew (1918 - 1996)

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
Muhammad Ali (1942 - )

A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return.
Maya Angelou (1928 - )

If you have money, men think you are wise, handsome, and able to sing like a bird.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

A bird in the hand's worth two fleeing by.
John James Audubon (1785 - 1851)

God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

For the birds that cannot soar, God has provided low branches.
James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

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