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Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich
in thy bedchamber; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice,
and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiastes (ch. X, v. 20)
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Birds of a feather will gather together.
Author: Robert Burton
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. III, sec. I, memb. 1, subsect. 2)
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Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now
comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early
mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with
the beauty of bird song.
Author: Rachel L. Carson
Source: The Silent Spring
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You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (pt. I, ch. IV)
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Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (pt. II, ch. LXXIV)
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Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice,
And with that boding cry
Along the waves dost thou fly?
Oh! rather, bird, with me
Through this fair land rejoice!
Author: Richard Henry Dana
Source: The Little Beach Bird
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Dame Nature's minstrels.
Author: Bishop Gavin Douglas
Source: Morning in May
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To warm their little loves the birds complain.
Author: Thomas Gray
Source: Sonnet on the Death of Richard West
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Fish got to swim and birds got to fly
I got to love one man till I die,
Can't help lovin' dat man of mine.
Author: Oscar Hammerstein II
Source: Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine, a song in the play "Showboat"
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The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.
For his song is all the joy of life,
And we in the mad spring weather,
We two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together.
Author: William Ernest Henley
Source: Echoes
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A feather in hand is better then a bird in the ayre.
[A feather in hand is better than a bird in the air.]
Author: George Herbert
Source: Jacula Prudentum
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When the swallows homeward fly,
When the roses scattered lie,
When from neither hill or dale,
Chants the silvery nightingale:
In these works my bleeding heart
Would to thee its brief impart;
When I thus thy image lose
Can I, ah! can I, e'er know repose?
Author: Karl Herrlossohn
Source: When the Swallows Homeward Fly
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Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood.
Author: John Heywood
Source: Proverbs (pt. I, ch. XI)
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I was always a lover of soft-winged things.
Author: Victor Hugo
Source: I Was Always a Lover
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A rare bird upon the earth, and exceedingly like a black swan.
[Lat., Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno.]
Author: Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
Source: Satires (VI, 165)
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Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember
it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Author: Harper Lee
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (ch. 10)
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Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Tales of a Wayside Inn--The Poet's Tale--The Birds of Killingworth
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That which prevents disagreeable flies from feeding on your
repast, was once the proud tail of a splendid bird.
Author: Marcus Valerius Martial
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep. 67)
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Birdes of a feather will flocke togither.
Author: Marcus Valerius Martial
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep. 67)
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Every bird that upwards swings
Bears the Cross upon its wings.
Author: Marcus Valerius Martial
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep. 67)
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He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the
bush.
Author: Plutarch
Source: Of Garrulity
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Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly
shore,--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Source: The Raven (st. 8)
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Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray,
With joyous musick wake the dawning day.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Pastorals--Spring (l. 23)
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A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Pastorals--Spring (l. 23)
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I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part II (Lancaster at V, v)
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The woosel cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill--
. . . .
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo grey,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Bottom at III, i)
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That byrd ys nat honest
That fylythe hys owne nest.
Author: John Skelton
Source: Poems Against Garnesche (III)
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The bird
That glads the night had cheer'd the listening groves with sweet
complainings.
Author: William C. Somerville
Source: The Chace
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