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Nightingales Quotes

Browse 128 quotes about Nightingales.

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Nightingales Quotes

“Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.”

LifeLongStillsLightNightDarkSilenceDarknessMoonBirdAll ThingsEveningQueensBeastRisingSilverLengthGrayHostTwilightSoberMajestyAll NightCouchesNestsAccompanyNightingalesCloudedFirmamentParadise Lost Book 9AmorousParadise Lost Book 2Sapphires
Author:John Milton
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“Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning it was not a Word, but a chirrup.”

LongStillsMomentsLastsTimeJesusForceGoneSingingPlantCrushSpokesEndurancePreachingOblivionBrutesPyramidsMother NatureDaisiesNightingalesBrute ForceBirdsongBirds Chirping
Book:Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays
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“I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses yet lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the world's first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. I see the pyramids building; I hear the shoutings of the armies of Alexander.”

WorldFirstsNightMorningLaughingAirBuildingArmyRoseLibraryBreatheScentEdenShoutingPyramidsNightingalesMorning Air
Book:Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country
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“The chorus-ending from Aristophanes, raised every night from every ditch that drains into the Mediterranean, hoarse and primeval as the raven's croak, is one of the grandest tunes to walk by. Or on a night in May, one can walk through the too rare Italian forests for an hour on end and never be out of hearing of the nightingale's song.”

MayEndsNightSongHoursWalksJourneyWalkingRaisedHearingForestsWanderTunesItalianEvery NightHikingDrainsTrekkingStrollingChorusSaunteringRavensNightingalesPrimeval
Author:G. M. Trevelyan
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“There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.”

WorldStillsWholeMomentsGodStoriesEarthFacesSongDiesFoundHeavenPayTreeListeningCreaturesSingingBirdSmileWhole WorldNovelistsJust OneLegendsAgonyRise AboveNestsNightingalesLarksOnce In A LifetimeBirdsongLast SongRise Above It
Author:Colleen McCullough
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“I am the dust in the sunlight, I am the ball of the sun . . . I am the mist of morning, the breath of evening . . . . I am the spark in the stone, the gleam of gold in the metal . . . . The rose and the nightingale drunk with its fragrance. I am the chain of being, the circle of the spheres, The scale of creation, the rise and the fall. I am what is and is not . . . I am the soul in all.”

SoulSpiritReligionFallSpiritualityMorningSunCreationStonesGoldBallsBreathsRoseCirclesScalesDrunkDustChainsEveningSparksSpheresMetalsGardeningSunlightFragranceMistGleamNightingales
Author:Rumi
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“In these days before antiseptics, doctors themselves also suffered high mortality rates. Florence Nightingale, a nurse during the Crimean War (1853-1856), watched one particularly inept surgeon cut both himself and, somehow, a bystander while blundering about during an amputation. Both men contracted an infection and died, as did the patient. Nightingale commented that it was the only surgery she'd ever seen with 300 percent mortality.”

MenWarCuttingPercentDoctorsDiedPatientRateThese DaysMortalityNurseSurgerySurgeonsInfectionNightingalesFlorenceBystandersAmputationFlorence Nightingale
Author:Sam Kean
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“Most of us live for the critic, and he lives on us. He doesn't sacrifice himself. He gets so much a line for writing a criticism. If the birds should read the newspapers, they would all take to changing their notes. The parrots would exchange with the nightingales, and what a farce it would be!”

IfsShouldWritingWould BeLinesSacrificeBirdCriticismNotesCriticsNewspapersParrotsNightingalesFarce
Book:W.M. Hunt's Talks about Art: With a Letter from J.E. Millais
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“Even the song of birds, which we can bring under no musical rule, seems to have more freedom, and therefore more for taste, than a song of a human being which is produced in accordance with all the rules of music; for we very much sooner weary of the latter, if it is repeated often and at length. Here, however, we probably confuse our participation in the mirth of a little creature that we love, with the beauty of its song; for if this were exactly imitated by man (as sometimes the notes of the nightingale are) it would seem to our ear quite devoid of taste.”

IfsMenHumansLittlesSometimesSeemsSongHuman BeingsTasteCreaturesBirdEarsNotesMusicalLatterLengthWearyParticipationMirthNightingales
Book:The Critique of Judgement
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“Disease an never be conquered, can never be quelled by emotion's willful screaming or faith's symbolic prayer. It can only be conquered by the energy of humanity and the cunning in the mind of man. In the patience of a Curie, in the enlightenment of a Faraday, a Rutherford, a Pasteur, a Nightingale, and all other apostles of light and cleanliness, rather than of a woebegone godliness, we shall find final deliverance from plague, pestilence, and famine.”

MenMindLightHumanityEnergyPrayerEmotionDiseaseEnlightenmentFinalsCunningPlagueSymbolicApostlesFamineGodlinessCleanlinessDeliveranceNightingalesPestilencePasteur
Author:Sean O'Casey
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“I see that you believe in love such as the poets and romancers have represented... The poets represent love as the sculptors design beauty, as the musicians create melody; that is to say, endowed with an exquisite nervous organization, they gather up with discerning ardor the purest elements of life, the most beautiful lines of matter, and the most harmonious voices of nature.... To try to find in real life such love as this, eternal and absolute, is the same thing as to seek on the public squares such a woman as Venus or to expect nightingales to sing the symphonies of Beethoven.”

LoveTryingBelieveRealMatterBeautifulVoiceLinesDesignPoetElementsEternalMusicianOrganizationAbsolutesReal LifeNervousMelodySquaresSymphonyExquisiteHarmoniousSculptorsVenusDiscerningNightingalesBelieve In LoveArdorElements Of Life
Book:The Confession of a Child of the Century
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“Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.”

ShouldMindHumansSelfSongTurnsNatureSunPoetTruth IsRoseExcellenceCreditAddressesHuman MindScentMistakenCongratulationsReservedRadianceNightingalesOdes
Book:Science and the Modern World
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