Swans Quotes

• The swan, like the soul of the poet, By the dull world is ill understood.

  Heinrich Heine

  Inspiring, Moving, Heart

  Heinrich Heine (1866). “The Poems of Heine: Complete”, p.17

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• Even if you enter the dirty water, stay neat like a white swan!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Dirty, White, Water

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• Those who awaken never rest in one place. Like swans, they rise and leave the lake. On the air they rise and fly an invisible course. Their food is knowledge. They live on emptiness. They have seen how to break free. Who can follow them?

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Lakes, Air

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• Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.

  Michael Gira

  Beautiful, Ugly, Majestic

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• Swans in the winter air
  A white perfection have

  W. H. Auden

  Winter, Air, White

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• There's a double beauty whenever a swan
  Swims on a lake with her double thereon.

  Thomas Hood

  Lakes, Swim, Swan Lake

  Thomas Hood (1861). “Poems ... Thirteenth edition”, p.159

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• But calm, white calm, was born into a swan.

  Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth

  White, Calm, Born

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• Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Love, Wings, Thunder

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.500, Stanford University Press

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• In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Wise, Ugly Duckling, Water

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• No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.

  David Hume

  White, Black, Inference

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• If swans weren't real myths'd make up.

  David Mitchell

  Real, Myth, Ifs

  "Black Swan Green".

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• Ugly ducklings don't turn into swans and glide off down the lake. Whether your sunglasses are on or off, you only see the world you make.

  Bonnie Raitt

  Lakes, Ugly Duckling, Games

  Song: Thing Called Love, Album: Nick of Time

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• swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

  Jan Struther

  Reading, Fans, Looks

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• Silence is a strange thing to us who live: we desire it, we fear it, we worship it, we hate it. There is a divinity about cats, as long as they are silent: the silence of swans gives them an air of legend.

  Keith Douglas

  Happiness, Hate, Cat

  Keith Douglas (2014). “Alamein to Zem Zem”, p.18, Faber & Faber

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• I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

  William Shakespeare

  Thinking, Crow, Thee

  William Shakespeare, Isaac Reed (1813). “The Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.800

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• If you're looking for monogamy, you'd better marry a swan.

  Nora Ephron

  Monogamy, Ifs

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• This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Art, Games, Hunters

  1935 Solstice,'Love the Wild Swan'.

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• It is best to live with honor for just a day than with dishonor for many decades; better a short lived celestial swan than a century-lived crow.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Honor, Crow, Century

  FaceBook post by Sri Sathya Sai Baba from Apr 12, 2017

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• Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.

  Hans Christian Andersen

  Ugly Duckling, Eggs, Ducks

  Hans Christian Andersen (2016). “Best Fairy Tales”, p.129, Pan Macmillan

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• The night folds her trembling hands over a weary world. Out of a pale blue rises the shining moon. My thoughts are flying to the stars like lonely swans.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Lonely, Stars, Night

  "Michael: a German fate in diary notes". Book by Joseph Goebbels, 1926.

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• O woman shapely as a swan.

  Padraic Colum

  Women

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• The swan in the pool is singing, And up and down doth he steer, And, singing gently ever, Dips under the water clear.

  Heinrich Heine

  Water, Singing, Dip

  Heinrich Heine (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Heinrich Heine (Illustrated)”, p.159, Delphi Classics

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• The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare.

  Wilkie Collins

  Lakes, Water, Black

  Wilkie Collins (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (Illustrated)”, p.4018, Delphi Classics

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• I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep.

  James Elroy Flecker

  Ships, Sail

  'Old Ships' (1915)

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• Millions of years ago, in my previous incarnations, I must have been related to swans... because I can still feel that affinity.

  Jean Sibelius

  Years, Reincarnation, Because I Can

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