Words That Take Wing – Our Favourite Quotes about Birds 

Birds have inspired some of the most memorable lines ever written. Here are ten of our favourite bird quotes that capture something of their power to move us:

1. “The robin sang sweetly in the autumn days. There are no days of my life that are so pleasant to me in the memory.” — Leo Tolstoy

2. “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.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the skylark

3. “The crow wished everything was black, the owl, that everything was white.” — William Blake

4. “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 epaulette I could have worn.” — Henry David Thoreau

5. “The sound of a blackbird singing just after a rain shower is worth more than most of what the human world has to offer.” — Matt Haig

6. “God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.” — Jacques Deval

7. “The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit.” — Joyce Meyer

8. “In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence.” — Robert Lynd

9. “A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.” — Robert Burton

10. “Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” — Henry van Dyke

A Closing Song

We especially love these quotes because they show that what birds offer us, above all, is perspective. They remind us that the world is not only ours, but theirs too. That beauty exists whether or not we’re too busy to notice it. That somewhere, right now, a blackbird is singing on a chimney pot, a wren is declaring war on the entire neighbourhood from the depths of a hedge, and a swift is streaming across the rooftops living almost its entire life on the wing and sleeping on the air…

All we have to do is stop, look up, and listen.

Illustrations by Bianca VanDijk