Quotessence
Home / Topics / Dragonflies Quotes

Dragonflies Quotes

Browse 40 quotes about Dragonflies.

Dragonflies Quotes

“When you pay attention, you prop the door of your soul ajar to welcome the unexpected and the uncontrolled... . You can't access your interior landscape by banging down a closed door; you can pencil it in as an appointment on your calendar. Paying attention is a habit forming mind-set that comes with repetition and with intention. You give yourself permissiong to "do nothing." You create quiet spaces. You open a door.”

SoulNatureQuietMindfulnessNature QuotesDragonfliesPaying AttentionNature Meditation
Book:Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History
Create image

“When we were children, everything scared us. The harmless dragonfly, for example, was called 'the devil's darning needle.' The creature hovered all around us int he summertime, ready to sew up the ears and lips of disobedient children. To us, even a common snipe, owl, or bittern calling from the marsh, might be a voice from the other side.”

FearChildhoodFairy TalesFairiesDragonfliesNewfoundland
Book:Spirited Away: Fairy stories of old Newfoundland
Create image

“from THE PAUSE BETWEEN One day the dragonflies appear sudden as the sun. Speed and softness, they lash sky to air in silent seams. One's barred wings and abdomen are pressing to the warm dock's slats. Another lights on the Chekhov book you bought me, not realizing, like everything, it is a short story, too.”

LoveAbsenceShort StoriesDocksChekhovDragonflies
Book:Reincarnation & Other Stimulants: Life, Death, & In-Between Poems
Create image

“Whoever the kid had been, whoever had the grand attitude, has finally heeded the admonishment of parents, teachers, governments, religions, and the law: "You just change your attitude now please, young man." This transformation in kids - from flashing dragonflies, so to say, to sticky water-surface worms slowly slipping downstream - is noticed with pride by society and with mortification by God, which is a fantastic way of saying I don't like to see kids throw away their truth just because it isn't worth a dime in the open market.”

MenWayGovernmentKidsLawYoungParentWaterAttitudeTeacherPridePleaseTransformationSurfaceFantasticYoung ManWormsDimesSlippingStickyMortificationChange Your AttitudeDragonflies
Book:I used to believe I had forever, now I'm not so sure
Create image

“Twisting through the thorn-thick underbrush, scratched and exhausted, one turns suddenly to find an unexpected waterfall, not half a mile from the nearest road, a spot so hard to reach that no one comes a hiding place, a shrine for dragonflies and nesting jays, a sign that there is still one piece of property that won't be owned.”

StillsHardTurnsHalfPiecesPropertyMilesSpotsUnexpectedHidingThickExhaustedOne PieceShrinesWaterfallsHiding PlaceDragonflies
Book:99 Poems: New & Selected
Create image

“Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts. Like the poet's image of a church bell that reveals its latent music only when struck, or a dragonfly that flames forth its beauty only in flight, so does the content of a human heart lie buried until action calls it forth. The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is and knowing that a thing is not.”

BelieveHumansHeartDoeSelfActionFormLyingBeliefChurchSpaceKnowingPoetFlightFlamesRevelationsBuriedBellsHuman HeartProjectionCompulsionConstraintsLatentDragonfliesSelf RevelationChurch Bells
Author:Terryl L. Givens
Create image

“The point of the dragonfly's terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows,is not that it all fits together like clockwork--for it doesn'tbut that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, finged tangle. Freedom is the world's water and weather, the world's nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.”

WorldTogetherBeautifulGivenWaterNatureFreedomFitTerribleFlowLipsCreatorWeatherGiantsSoilWildernessFlashBugsNourishmentSapClockworkDazzleCreeksBirdsongDragonfliesMinnowsPizzazz
Author:Annie Dillard
Create image

“Anyone can buy a car or a night on the town. Most of us shell our days like peanuts. One in a thousand can look at the world with amazement. I don't mean gawking at the Chrysler Building. I'm talking about the wing of a dragonfly. The tale of the shoeshine. Walking through an unsullied hour with an unsullied heart”

WorldLooksHeartMeanNightHoursTalkingCarBuildingWalkingThousandTownsWingsTalesShellsPeanutsAmazementDragonfliesChryslerChrysler Building
Book:Rules of Civility: A Novel
Create image

“...The girls chirped and chatted like uncaged warblers. They were delirious with joy... Intoxications of life’s morning! Enchanted years! The wing of a dragonfly trembles! Oh, reader, whoever you may be, do you have such memories? Have you walked in the underbrush, pushing aside branches for the charming head behind you? Have you slid laughing, down some slope wet with rain, with the woman you loved?”

YearsMayJoyGirlMemoriesBehindsMorningLaughingReaderRainWingsBranchesPushingWetCharmingBehind YouEnchantedIntoxicationSlopesDeliriousDragonflies
Book:Les Misérables
Create image

“I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they wont' just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight.”

LittlesTwoMomentsUseLightAbleTogetherTreeTearsFlowerBirdCloudsAtomsNew LifeFloatingSpecksFantasy BooksSunbeamsPine TreesLiterary LoveDragonfliesHis Dark Materials
Book:The Amber Spyglass
Create image

“Go to sleep, baby,Mama will sing. Of blue butterflies, and dragonfly wings. Moonlight and sunbeams, raiments so fine. Silver and gold, for baby of mine. Go to sleep, baby. Sister will tell, of wolves and of lambs, and demons who fell.-Pierce's Lullaby Kim Harrison (Black Magic Sanction)”

BlackSleepMagicMinesBabyFineGoldBlueWingsDemonSilverButterflyMoonlightMamaSanctionsGoing To SleepLambsPierceKimLullabySunbeamsBlack MagicBaby SisterDragonfliesBaby Mama
Author:Kim Harrison
Create image

“Sophia and Grandmother sat down by the shore to discuss the matter further. It was a pretty day, and the sea was running a long, windless swell. It was on days just like this--dog days--that boats went sailing off all by themselves. Large, alien objects made their way in from sea, certain things sank and others rose, milk soured, and dragonflies danced in desperation. Lizards were not afraid. When the moon came up, red spiders mated on uninhabited skerries, where the rock became an unbroken carpet of tiny, ecstatic spiders.”

WayLongMadeMatterRunningCertainSeaRocksDogObjectsMoonRedRoseTinyBoatAliensSatGrandmotherShoreMilkNot AfraidSailingDesperationSpidersCarpetEcstaticUnbrokenLizardsSophiaDragonfliesDog Days
Author:Tove Jansson
Create image

“Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist. Pink dragonflies fall from the air and become scorpions scratching blood out of rocks. The rainbows that dangle upon this mist: shatter. Like the smile of a child separated from his mother’s milk for the very first time. --from poem Blood and Blossoms”

FirstsChildrenMotherFallAirBloodRocksFirst TimeGardenRefuseMilkRainbowMistScorpionsDragonflies
Book:I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
Create image

“Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.”

PeopleIfsGivingHumansChildrenSaidBookProblemWould BeFacesBeliefForceAnswersFourTreeStrangeWindBirdRiversStonesFleshFace To FaceStainsHummingbirdsDragonfliesWind In The WillowsTadpolesChipmunks
Author:Derrick Jensen
Create image

“Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone's gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly.”

EnoughMomentsActionLyingOrderSpeakSpaceAnswersPleasureCitiesKnowingDistanceRhythmHeightThat MomentGesturesSheerTransparentDragonflies
Author:Italo Calvino
Create image

“So, that was Nature's way. The mosquito felt pain and panic but the dragonfly knew nothing of cruelty. Humans would call it evil, the big dragonfly destroying the mosquito and ignoring the little insects suffering. Yet humans hated mosquitoes too, calling them vicious and bloodthirsty. All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.”

WayHumansLittlesBigsPainSufferingEvilFeltCallingInventionCrueltyHatedDestroyingPanicViciousInsectsMosquitoesHuman InventionsDragonflies
Book:The Tomorrow Series: Tomorrow When the War Began
Create image

“And in time it will be as though men had never come to this perfect corner of the world-never called it paradise on earth, never despoiled it with their dream factories; and in the golden hush of the afternoon all that will be heard will be the flittering of dragonflies, and the murmur of hummingbirds as they pass from bower to bower, looking for a place to sup sweetness.”

MenWorldDreamEarthPerfectHeardBirdCornersGoldenParadiseAfternoonFactoriesSweetnessHushHummingbirdsCorners Of The WorldDragonfliesParadise On Earth
Author:Clive Barker
Create image