Best Canaries Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine, but, eventually, as computers get more and more powerful, it will kill off all middle-class professions.”

Powerful Class Middle Computer Musician Profession Journalist Middle Class Canaries

Author:Jaron Lanier

“My father used to run auctions. He's now a singer in the Canary Islands.”

Running Used Father Singers Islands Auctions Canaries

Author:Jason Statham

“Birds are, especially canaries, are super sensitive to hydrogen sulfide and sour gas.”

Bird Sensitive Gas Sour Hydrogen Canaries

Author:David Suzuki

“Why employ intelligent and highly paid ambassadors and then go and do their work for them? You don't buy a canary and sing yourself.”

Paid Intelligent Ambassadors Canaries

Author:John Keats

“We have nothing to fear but our mothers.”

Mother Canaries

Author:Anne Taintor

“The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems.”

Should Art Artist Mines Theory Bird Coal Alarms Treasured Canaries

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”

“It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.”

Thinking Heaven Foolish Entering Canaries

Author:Bill Vaughan

“We are the canaries in the mine. If we go, the last ecosystems go. So does the wisdom of how to sustain resources, live in balance with nature, and create communities based on cooperation, not competition. I think the rest of the world is searching for these values. I know we're here to share them. But we can only share them if we're here.”

Ifs Thinking Knows World Doe Lasts Values Community Environment Share Mines Balance Survival Resources Competition Cooperation Ecosystems Canaries

Author:Rebecca Adamson

“If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it.”

Ifs Should Problem Together Moving Pay Attention Mines Gold Pay Attention Relative Currency Coal Signals Central Banks Canaries Moving Up

Author:Alan Greenspan

“Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and delight, the canary that sings on the skull.”

Ifs World Long Pain Joy Suffering Games Mystery Waste Delight Cruelty Compass Brutes Skulls Bumps Canaries

Author:Annie Dillard

“The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're moulting They're pretty revolting.”

Song Vary Canaries

Author:Ogden Nash

“Right and responsibility go hand in hand. You can't give rights to those who are not responsible. If you want to let your canary out of the cage, the first thing you would do is to kick your cat out of the house. This does not mean you don't love your cat, but he has no right to stay in the house because he can't act responsibly. It would be foolish to wait until he kills the canary and then punish him. You already know the cat can't be trusted. The problem with Muslims is that they too can't be trusted and can't act responsibly.”

Ifs Knows Want Giving Firsts Mean Doe Problem Hands Would Be House Waiting Responsibility Rights Love You Cat Responsible Foolish Kicks Trusted Cages Hand In Hand Canaries

Author:Ali Sina

“The image that I remember most of all is of the Fenerbahçe players storming into the stadium before kickoff. They were called the canaries because of their yellow jerseys. It was as if they, like canaries, were fluttering into the stadium out of a hole. I loved it. It was poetry.”

Ifs Remember Player Holes Yellow Jersey Stadiums Fluttering Canaries

Author:Orhan Pamuk

“A tom cat hijacked a plane, stuck a pistol into the pilot's ribs and demanded: 'Take me to the canaries'.”

Humor Funny Cat Stuck Planes Take Me Pilots Toms Ribs Pistols Canaries

Author:Bob Monkhouse

“It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them.”

World May Stills Seems Lasts Spirit Winning Greater Late Wings Conquer Analysis Leap Cages Free Spirit Canaries

Author:H. L. Mencken

“The canary is like a man's soul. It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings.”

Men Soul Bars Canaries

Author:Nikos Kazantzakis

“Don't save the canary. Fix the coal mine.”

Mines Coal Canaries

Author:Seth Godin

“Surfers are the canaries down the mine. Those of us who surf spend more time than anyone soaking in whatever the sea has become. We're suspended in consequences, you might say.”

Might Sea Mines Consequence More Time Surf Suspended Surfer Soaking Canaries

Author:Tim Winton

“You could say sorry," suggested Harry bluntly. "What, and get attacked by another flock of canaries?" muttered Ron. "What did you have to imitate her for?" "She laughed at my mustache!" "So did I, it was the stupidest thing I've ever seen.”

Sorry Laughed Flocks Mustache Stupidest Saying Sorry Canaries

Author:J. K. Rowling

“Just then Neville caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary.”

Diversion Canaries

Author:J. K. Rowling

“Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you love me thus!”

Years Long Two Country Dream Found House Felt Mines Strange Mets Notes Floating June Affinity Canaries

Book:Lolita

Source: Lolita

“My father once nearly came to blows with a female dinner guest about whether a particular patch of embroidery was fuchsia or magenta. But the infinite gradations of color in a fine sunset - from salmon to canary to midnight blue - left him wordless.”

Father Left Particular Color Fine Female Infinite Blue Blow Dinner Sunset Guests Midnight Patches Salmon Canaries Embroidery Magenta Dinner Guests Midnight Blue

Author:Alison Bechdel

“Fear sucks. Because you never know when it will attack. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you, giggling like your best girlfriend from seventh grade. Then it whacks you on the back of the head, takes you straight to your knees before you realize what hit you. Other times you can see it coming, just a dot on the horizon, but you're like a canary in a cage. All you can do is hang in there and hope you don't get motion sickness and puke all over the newspapers.”

Knows Sometimes Fear Can Do Realizing Behinds Newspapers Knees Girlfriend Grades Sickness Horizon Cages Behind You Dots Sneak Hang In There Puke Seventh Grade Canaries Best Girlfriend

Author:Jennifer Rardin

“You should see what she’s wearing, Callie. It’s velvet. Canary yellow velvet. Turban to match. She looks like a furry banana.”

Should Looks Yellow Bananas Velvet Furry Canaries Turbans

Author:Sarah MacLean

“It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.”

Artist Air Mines Tests Caught Prophetic Canaries

Book:Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

Source: Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

“places to hunt places to hide are getting harder to find, and pet canaries and goldfish too, did you notice that?”

Harder Pet Hunts Goldfish Canaries

Book:The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993

Source: The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993

“Being in love, you know... it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her.”

Knows Loses Love You Cages Being In Love Sweetheart Canaries

Book:Tipping The Velvet

Source: Tipping The Velvet

“The smell of that buttered toast simply spoke to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.”

Voice Morning Feet Cat Winter Warm Smell Evening Kitchen Spokes Breakfast Uncertain Toasts Sleepy Cozy Toads Purring Canaries

Author:Kenneth Grahame

“I think the canary left some feathers in there after you ate it.”

Thinking Left Feathers Canaries

Book:Uncommon Criminals

Source: Uncommon Criminals

“[Magnus] was wearing canary-yellow pajamas, and on his feet were green slippers with alien faces, complete with sproingy atennae.”

Faces Feet Green Aliens Yellow Pajamas Slippers Canaries

Book:City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Because of her, he had learned to look for the birds - the darting flight of wild canaries (yellow sun on yellow wings), the chesty preening of redbirds and bluebirds, the blackbird with the red-tipped wings like startling epaulets.”

Looks Sun Bird Red Wings Flight Grieving Yellow Bluebird Canaries Blackbirds Yellow Sun

Author:Terry Kay

“A caged canary is safe but not free.”

Liberty Safe Libertarian Libertarianism Caged Canaries

Author:Walter E. Williams

“A caged canary is secure; but it is not free. It is easier for free men to resist terrorism from afar than tyranny from within.”

Men Easier Integrity Terrorism Tyranny Secure Patriotic Free Man Afar Caged Canaries

Author:Chuck Baldwin

“You know it's time to start using mouthwash when your dentist leaves the room and sends in a canary.”

Knows Rooms Jokes Dentist Canaries

Author:Joan Rivers

“Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine?”

Soul Known Gone Fields Mines Poet Fine Drink Wine Host Mermaid Taverns Caverns Canaries French Wine Elysium

Author:John Keats

“Will urban sprawl spread so far that most people lose all touch with nature? Will the day come when the only bird a typical American child ever sees is a canary in a pet shop window? When the only wild animal he knows is a rat-glimpsed on a night drive through some city slum? When the only tree he touches is the cleverly fabricated plastic evergreen that shades his gifts on Christmas morning?”

“Social media is the ultimate canary in the coal mine”

Social Media Mines Ultimate Social Media Coal Canaries

Author:Jay Baer

“Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself.”

Happens America Mines Israel Canaries

Author:David Horowitz

“And he supposed it might not be the best of days. But then, he was flying the mails and was not expected to squat on the ground like a frightened canary every time there was a cloud in the sky. If a pilot showed an obvious preference for flying only in the best conditions he soon found himself looking for work. This was the way of his life and he had always ascended when others had found excuse to keep their feet on the ground.”

“Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.”

Pious Canaries

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Women and gay people are the litmus test of whether a society is democratic and respecting human rights. We are the canaries in the mine.”

People Humans Rights Mines Gay Tests Democratic Human Rights Gay People Canaries

Author:Peter Tatchell

“Knowing without any doubt that the newly elected cannot help but be his zombies, Obama is the cat who swallowed the canary.”

Helping Knowing Doubt Cat Zombie Canaries

Author:Judi McLeod

“Artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are supersensitive. They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before more robust types realize that any danger is there.”

Long Artist Realizing Danger Mines Type Filled Sensitive Poison Gas Coal Robust Keel Canaries Poison Gas

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“Perhaps poetry will be the canary in the mine-shaft warning us of what's to come.”

Mines Warning Canaries

Author:Galway Kinnell

“That's what the cat said to the canary when he swallowed him - 'You'll be all right.”

Said Cat Canaries

Author:Alvah Bessie

“It is a pity that so many Americans today think of the Indian as a romantic or comic figure in American history without contemporary significance. In fact, the Indian plays much the same role in our society that the Jews played in Germany. Like the miner’s canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith.”

“Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter. It is, in many ways, the most powerful form of free speech because it is aimed at those in power, or those whose ideas would spread hate. It is the canary in the coalmine, a cultural thermometer, and it always has to push, push, push the boundaries of society to see how much it’s grown.”

“You can't soar like an eagle and crap like a canary.”

Crap Soar Eagles Canaries

Author:Ed Sabol

“She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years.”

Years Two Pieces Ten Nine Suits Yellow One Piece Bathing Bathing Suits Canaries

Book:FOR ESME- WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR

Source: FOR ESME- WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR

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Canaries Quotes