Monarch Butterfly Quotes

• There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Inspirational, Change, Success

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  We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Change, Inspiring

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from May 15, 2013

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• What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

  Richard Bach

  Inspirational, Change, Inspiring

  "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah". Book by Richard Bach, 1977.

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• Butterflies...flowers that fly and all but sing.

  Robert Frost

  Flower, Butterfly

  Robert Frost, “Blue-Butterfly Day”

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  Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  138 Copy quote

• Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

  Hans Christian Andersen

  Nature, Flower, Philosophical

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The butterfly is a flying flower,
  The flower a tethered butterfly.

  Ponce Denis Ecouchard Lebrun

  Flower, Butterfly, Flying

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• The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.

  George Carlin

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  "Why My Journey Of Grief Is So Like A Butterfly’s Metamorphosis" by Laurie Burrows Grad, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 4, 2016.

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• The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Time, Memories, Butterfly

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.438, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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  We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

  Carl Sagan

  Time, Butterfly, Thinking

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Children, Flower, Butterfly

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• I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

  Charles Dickens

  Freedom, Butterfly, Liberty

  Bleak House ch. 6 (1853)

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• We humans think we are smart, but an orchid, for example, knows how to produce noble, symmetrical flowers, and a snail knows how to make a beautiful, well-proportioned shell. Compared with their knowledge, ours is not worth much at all. We should bow deeply before the orchid and the snail and join our palms reverently before the monarch butterfly and the magnolia tree. The feeling of respect for all species will help us recognize the noblest nature in ourselves.

  Nhat Hanh

  Beautiful, Respect, Nature

  Thich Nhat Hanh “Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings”, Orbis Books

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• The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.

  Primo Levi

  Beautiful, Eye, Butterfly

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• There is a difference between our wisdom and nature's simplicity. That reflects the burden of a complex intelligence. A complex intelligence like ours is impotent compared to the intelligence of a monarch butterfly migrating from Canada to Mexico, or the intelligence of hummingbirds that have co-evolved with the flowers all along their migration route. That seems so simple; it just happens, it just unfolds.

  Alison Hawthorne Deming

  Flower, Butterfly, Simple

  38 Copy quote

• Nerves and butterflies are fine - they're a physical sign that you're mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that's the trick.

  Steve Bull

  Butterfly, Worry, Nerves

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• I embrace emerging experience, I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly.

  William Stafford

  Butterfly, Discovery, Experience

  William Stafford, Paul Merchant, Vincent Wixon (1998). “Crossing unmarked snow: further views on the writer's vocation”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• I've watched you now a full half-hour; Self-poised upon that yellow flower And, little Butterfly! Indeed I know not if you sleep or feed. How motionless! - not frozen seas More motionless! and then What joy awaits you, when the breeze Hath found you out among the trees, And calls you forth again!

  William Wordsworth

  Flower, Sleep, Butterfly

  William Wordsworth, Stephen Gill (2000). “The Major Works”, p.254, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave. The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Gratitude, Flower, Butterfly

  Rabindranath Tagore (2007). “Stray Birds”, p.22, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Flower, Butterfly, Bird

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• They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods

  Edith Wharton

  Happiness, Butterfly, Winter

  Edith Wharton (2005). “Ethan Frome - Literary Touchstone”, p.85, Prestwick House Inc

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• I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

  Zhuangzi

  Inspirational, Dream, Wisdom

  'Chuang Tzu' (1889, translated by H. A. Giles) ch. 2

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• Listen with your heart, you will understand.

  Pocahontas

  Heart, Listening, Passed Away

  Song: Listen With Your Heart I

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• We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Children, Hate, Flower

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• Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.

  Drew Barrymore

  Beauty, Beautiful, Self Esteem

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