Wrens Quotes

• Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.

  John Dryden

  Stupid, Tired, Eagles

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden now first collected ...”, p.344

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• He who shall hurt the little wren Shall never be beloved by men.

  William Blake

  Hurt, Men, Littles

  'Auguries of Innocence' (c.1803) l. 29

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

  William Shakespeare

  Fighting, Bird, Owl

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 4, sc. 2, l. 8

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes I fly like an eagle but with the wings of a wren

  Anne Sexton

  Life, Eagles, Wings

  Anne Sexton (1975). “The Awful Rowing Toward God”, Boston : Houghton Mifflin

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• I honor the wisdom of life. I learn from life in all its forms. The tree teaches me. The sparrow and the wren sing my song. I am open to the lessons Life brings me from the earth. I learn from the wind, from the sun, from the small flowers, and from the stars. I walk without arrogance. I learn from all I encounter. I open my mind and heart to the guidance and love that come to me from the natural world.

  Julia Cameron

  Song, Nature, Stars

  Julia Cameron (1997). “Heart Steps”, p.19, Penguin

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world is grown so bad, That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

  William Shakespeare

  Eagles, World, Prey

  William Shakespeare, Janis Lull (2009). “King Richard III”, p.85, Cambridge University Press

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  "Court of Love". Book by Geoffrey Chaucer, line 1,372,

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• The wren and the nightingale sound nothing alike, but think how dull the world would be without the songs of both birds.-Miss Kanagawa

  Kirby Larson

  Song, Thinking, Bird

  11 Copy quote

• Die for adultery! No: The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight

  William Shakespeare

  Sight, Doe, Adultery

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 4, sc. 6, l. [110]

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• There was an old man with a beard, who said: 'It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard.

  Edward Lear

  Men, Two, Justice

  A Book of Nonsense (1846)

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now the wren has gone to roost and the sky is turnin' gold Turnin' from the past, at last and all I've left behind.

  Ray LaMontagne

  Moving, Past, Sky

  10 Copy quote

• The question before me, now that I am old, is not how to be dead, which I know from enough practice, but how to be alive, as these worn hills still tell, and some paintings of Paul Cezanne, and this mere singing wren, who thinks he's alive forever, this instant, and may be.

  Wendell Berry

  Thinking, Practice, Forever

  Wendell Berry (2013). “This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems”, p.222, Counterpoint

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended; and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many thing by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection!

  William Shakespeare

  Thinking, Perfection, Crow

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 102

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is the extinction of a condor to a child who has never seen a wren?

  Robert Pyle

  Children, Extinction

  6 Copy quote

• Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
  Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
  And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
  Must ask permission to know it and be known.
  The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
  I have made this place around you,
  If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
  No two trees are the same to Raven.
  No two branches are the same to Wren.
  If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
  You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
  Where you are. You must let it find you.

  David Wagoner

  Powerful, Ravens, Two

  David Wagoner (1999). “Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems”, p.10, University of Illinois Press

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Happiness, Two, People

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.648, St. Martin's Griffin

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeurve for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels!

  Walt Whitman

  Running, Depressing, Stars

  Walt Whitman, “Song Of Myself, XXXI”

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• You look ridiculous,” Wren said. “What?” “That shirt.” It was a Hello Kitty shirt from eighth or ninth grade. Hello Kitty dressed as a superhero. It said SUPER CAT on the back, and Wren had added an H with fabric paint. The shirt was cropped too short to begin with, and it didn’t really fit anymore. Cath pulled it down self-consciously. “Cath!” her dad shouted from downstairs. “Phone.” Cath picked up her cell phone and looked at it “He must mean the house phone,” Wren said. “Who calls the house phone?” “Probably 2005. I think it wants its shirt back.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Dad, Mean, Cat

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.521, St. Martin's Griffin

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• And somewhat as in blind night, on a mild sea, a sailor may be made aware of an iceberg, fanged and mortal, bearing invisibly near, by the unwarned charm of its breath, nothingness now revealed itself: that permanent night upon which the stars in their expiring generations are less than the glinting of gnats, and nebulae, more trivial than winter breath; that darkness in which eternity lies bent and pale, a dead snake in a jar, and infinity is the sparkling of a wren blown out to sea; that inconceivable chasm of invulnerable silence in which cataclysms of galaxies rave mute as amber.

  James Agee

  Stars, Lying, Winter

  James Agee (2008). “A Death in the Family”, p.66, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The wren-box problem is becoming more acute each year, for wrens now demand better housing conditions and labor-saving devices.

  Will Cuppy

  Years, Bird, Demand

  Will Cuppy, P. G. Wodehouse (2005). “How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes”, p.43, David R. Godine Publisher

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wisdom, Writing, Arms

  1870 Society and Solitude,'Art'.

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Words mean what they're generally believed to mean. When Charles II saw Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral for the first time, he called it "awful, pompous, and artificial." Meaning roughly: Awesome, majestic, and ingenious.

  S.M. Stirling

  Mean, Awful, Majestic

  5 Copy quote

• Sometimes Frank sighed, thinking he had caught a tropic bird, all flame and jewel color, when a wren would have served him just as well. In fact, much better.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Thinking, Flames, Jewels

  Margaret Mitchell, Pat Conroy (2008). “Gone with the Wind”, p.896, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh... Even the streams were now lifeless... No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

  Rachel Carson

  Morning, Spring, Voice

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.2, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Glory, glory, said the Bee, Hallelujah, said the Flea. Praise the Lord, remarked the Wren. At springtime all is born-again.

  Eric Metaxas

  Fleas, Bees, Springtime

  Eric Metaxas (2012). “Wilberforce: Der Mann, der die Sklaverei abschaffte”, p.124, SCM Hänssler im SCM-Verlag

  4 Copy quote

  Show source