Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don't notice whether it's passing quickly or slowly.

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Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.

quote by Ivan TurgenevReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What Must You Do?

oh, those little things

like the brown grasses of summer,
a flower that blooms in the middle of those rocks
the worm that crawls its way slowly to the humid part
the black bird that stays alone on a branch
the tree that keeps on shedding off its leaves
the dry wind, the post in the middle of the rice field
a banana leaf torn on its sides
a concrete fence surrounding the university

these and those that people do not mind
are mine to write about

we make out our links to all these
we make our own definitions of the self
with what we also mean to them

the black bird staring, the concrete fence of indifference.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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This Little Bird

John d loudermilk
Theres a little bird that somebody sends
Down to the earth to live on the wind.
Born on the wind and he sleeps on the wind
This little bird that somebody sends.
Hes light and fragile and feathered sky blue,
So thin and graceful the sun shines through.
This little bird who lives on the wind,
This little bird that somebody sends.
He flies so high up in the sky
Out of reach of human eye.
And the only time that he touches the ground
Is when that little bird
Is when that little bird
Is when that little bird dies.

song performed by by Roy OrbisonReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Theodore Roethke

The Right Thing

Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will-
The right thing happens to the happy man.

The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.

God bless the roots!-Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,

And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man.

poem by Theodore RoethkeReport problemRelated quotes
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Wallace Stevens

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

poem by Wallace StevensReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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What Now Little Bird?

what now little bird?

you look around you
the nest is empty
and mother bird is far away
and siblings
have taken the first jump
to the pond
to learn to float
and then
fly

you think that mother-bird
comes back
to feed you with another worm?

no, little bird
no one is coming back for you
you do not even
know if you have a father-bird
to save you

no, little bird
do not wait
do not waste your time
the sun shines
and it is time
for you to go too


fly now
little bird
find the real meaning of your wings....

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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Little Bird Song

Theres a little bird
Somebody sent down to earth
To live along the wind
Blowing on the wind
And she sleeps on the wind
This little bird, somebody sent
Light and fragile
And feathered sky blue
Thin and graceful
The sun shining through
She flies so high up in the sky
Way out of reach of human eyes
Light and fragile
And feathered sky blue
Thin and graceful
The sun shining through
She flies so high up in the sky
Way out of reach of human eyes
Light and fragile
And feathered sky blue
Thin and graceful
The sun shining through
And the only time that she touches ground
Is when that little bird, little bird
Is when that little bird, little bird
Is when that little bird, little bird
Is when that little bird dies

song performed by by JewelReport problemRelated quotes
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Sarajevo Sonnet

Within the four walls of this sonnet’s form
(while outside spring rain gathers in a pail) ,
there is at least one happy story to tell,
something lovely brought on by a storm.

Fresh thrifts have sprouted, and a fat worm
lazily crawls out of someone’s cracked bell,
crawls out of the centre of someone’s hell,
out of a skull atop a uniform,

while not too far away, in someone’s rib cage,
in a sunlit temple without a steeple,
two tiny beetles in the place of people,

(their love too pure to ever turn into rage,
too tried and true to ever fail or falter) , —
take their vows before a priestless altar.

poem by Leo YankevichReport problemRelated quotes
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Human Beings

Human being beings are strange in being human,

Strange in love and art and vice,

Strange in being nice

Human beings are strangers in the night

Lights shining on a starry night

No sooner blinked out they are gone

A stranger in the human race

Keeping up keeping face,

Moving on

In crowds and queues and buses

Walking alone at ten

Human beings in being human

Make the strangest men

Not easy to be read,

Or clothed or fed

Or put to bed

Each thought entwined

Lives over signed overlapped

Smaller beings kept but not as 'pets'

Sometimes feel 'trapped'

For human beings are best when left at sea

Frantic firey disordered unchained set free


Their limpet souls make rocks their strange security

For love for life for space,


Human beings are strangest in 'The Human Race'

poem by Yvette SmithReport problemRelated quotes
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I want to fly!

yes, you do.
where do you want to go?
i am looking for a new home

how does one grow wings?
i want to fly...

it is the most quiet conversation.
the man begs to understand
why the mouth he is blest with does not take the shape of a beak.

the bird sings of many lands
the man has not yet been to

the little brown bird's heart is a ray of sun
but the man does not know


inside the wars are all in the making
outside it is still calm

the bird and the man kiss
the bird flies
the man falls asleep
the man flies
the bird is dead.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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It's Cold

Winter is coming I feel cold
My hands are frozen as are my toes
My head is wrapped up in a scarf
Brightly coloured so people laugh
I see no pigeons - just robins and tits
Pecking away at the ground, pecking for bits
I've just walked in and switch the heating on
So hopefully the cold chill will be quickly gone
As I boil the kettle to make some tea
I see a robin perched outside on the balcony
He turns round when I slowly open the door
Cocks his head and watches me slowly withdraw
With a quick flutter he flies under my chair
And starts pecking at bits of food that are there
It's cold outside and I wish he would stay
In the warm where I can watch him play
Suddenly without warning to my surprise
He flies off leaving a deposit of enormous size
So if I see that little bird again you see
He can stay outside and be cold in a tree.

poem by JeanJacques EvendonReport problemRelated quotes
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Sightings

You would have to be a bat wearing Foster Grants.
Or some shaded eye covering,
Not to notice 'something' in the sky.
Something that has flashed by...
Or stopped just to get your attention.
And your attention these 'objects' demand.

It is time to go within children.
Children of the slow in mind.
Children in denial with reality placed on trial.

Sightings!
That's what these celestrial beings are.
Sightings!
Although depicted in your Bible.
You rely on a consciousness...
That is unreliable.
And that is kept denied.

Sightings!
That's what these celestrial beings are.
An awareness for many.
And unbelievable when seen.
Sightings!
That's what these celestrial beings are.

Slowly piercing through dimensions unknown.
But deliberately done.
Not to have the masses scream.
OR be afraid to submit.

And the return of The One...
To this planet comes!
Or perhaps just one of many ONES,
Representing kingdoms throughout the Universe...
See us and descend!
To be welcomed.

poem by Lawrence S. PertillarReport problemRelated quotes
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Passing Through

I saw jesus on the cross on a hill called calvary
Do you hate mankind for what they done to you?
He said, talk of love not hate, things to do - its getting late.
Ive so little time and Im only passing through.
Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through.
I saw adam leave the garden with an apple in his hand,
I said now youre out, what are you going to do?
Plant some crops and pray for rain, maybe raise a little cane.
Im an orphan now, and Im only passing through.
Passing through, passing through ...
I was with washington at valley ford, shivering in the snow.
I said, how come the men here suffer like they do?
Men will suffer, men will fight, even die for what is right
Even though they know theyre only passing through
Passing through, passing through ...
I was with franklin roosevelts side on the night before he died.
He said, one world must come out of world war two (ah, the fool)
Yankee, russian, white or tan, he said, a man is still a man.
Were all on one road, and were only passing through.
Passing through, passing through ...
(lets do it one more time)
Passing through, passing through ...

song performed by by Leonard CohenReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What The Bird Sang

Happy Bird Day to you
Happy Bird day to you
Happy Bird day, Happy Bird day,
Happy Bird Day to you!

So sang the parrot, Morgan Lafite.

poem by Robert DickersonReport problemRelated quotes
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That's A Thoroughbred

Is the fresh dew appearing,
On the backside of a thoroughbred horse...
Any indication,
That this horse stays prepared to run a race...
Anytime.
And never finds time to relax or sleep?
Or keep away from the track.
Only to practice lap after lap after lap,
With eyes on the prize!
And that's why the dew.
Since the early bird catches the worm?

'I stayed with you until we got to the bird.
And the worm.
What does that have to do with the horse? '

That's not just an ordinary horse.
Doing laps around a course!
That's a thoroughbred.

poem by Lawrence S. PertillarReport problemRelated quotes
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Aldous Huxley

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.

quote by Aldous HuxleyReport problemRelated quotes
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Loquacious

this afternoon, i talk a lot, and the more i talk,
the more words flowed from my mouth, the more i become less
of myself,

that is the irony of talking, the more i empty myself of this burden
using words, the lighter i become, the more useless i become of myself,
words and more words,
the more i have of them, the more meaningless my thoughts have become

and they who are listening have become more silent than ever,
i know, their minds are somewhere else, and i know that they know
that there is this spirit in front of them so restless,
wriggling like a worm, jumping like a horse, flapping like a bird

wanting to get rid of something: the fruit wanting to be free from the worm,
the horse from a gadfly, and the bird from the pricking flea....

what else can they say? they must have been saying.
we perfectly understand, we have been there, we were once a fruit
with a worm in our pulp, a horse with a gadfly in our tail,
a bird unable to get rid of the flea....

we were rotten once, we jumped the more, and now we are flying away.
what a life we have, we are never free, and we are never for even once
comfortable with what we are and what we have....

what we do not have of course, is what bothers us the most.
be it a horse, a bird, or a fruit, a flea, a worm, a gadfly of old
like what Socrates once mentioned before he took the fatal poison.

well he died, and here we are always trying to remember.

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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A Poem Of Syntax

A poet and his bird, his dog, his cat and his tree
A poet and the bird in the tree
A poet and his dog in the tree
A poet and his dog in the tree and the wind and the cloud
The bird in the tree, the dog in the tree, the cat in the tree,
The bird in the tree, the dog on the tree, the cat under the tree,
The bird on the tree, the bird in a tree, a bird in a tree, a bird in the tree,
And the wind and the cloud and the poet and his dog and his cat and the tree

The dog chases the cat the cat chases the bird
And they all arrive in that tree
Where the poet is sitting under that tree
The poet takes the dog and the cat was envious
And the bird looks at them in silence
The silence looks at the poet in the eye
Of the cat and the bird flies away
The poet and the dog is the poem of friendship
The cat and the dog is the poem of the endless natural quarrels
And the bird that flies away against the cat and the dog and the poet and the tree
And flies against the wind that the bird is now fighting
And the clouds that seem so blue and blue

The bird that actually flies away
Is actually me
I was not the poet with the dog

I am not the tree I am not the wind I am not the cloud I am not the poet there who had a dog as friend and I was not the quarrelsome thing from the blue and out of the blue

I am the bird with wings and I always fly away to places
Against the wind to places where I can be as always be the bird with wings in silence

poem by Ric S. BastasaReport problemRelated quotes
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A Bird's Happiness

A cherry hello to you
So the bird said to me
I asked him why he was happy
As he was sitting in a tree

I looked at him in the tree
And wondered what he was doing
Then he said that he saw a worm
And it was what he was pursuing

So we should take lessons
From the bird in the tree
Ashe was getting ready to build a nest
As he had use to be

Then he returned to his nest
As happy as could be
He sang and sang
As he was in the tree.

poem by Dolores MahanReport problemRelated quotes
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To a Sleeping Child

Lips, lips, open!
Up comes a little bird that lives inside
Up comes a little bird, and peeps, and out he flies.

All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings,
Up he comes, and out he goes at night to spread his wings.

Little bird, little bird, whither will you go?
Round about the world, while nobody can know.

Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee?
Far away around the world, while nobody can see.

Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam?
All round the world and around again home;

Round the round world, and back through the air,
When the morning comes, the little bird is there.

Back comes the little bird and looks and in he flies,
Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes.

Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird’s away,
Little bird will come again, by the peep of day;

Sleep, little boy, the little bird must go
Round about the world, while nobody can know.
Sleep, sleep sound, little bird goes round,
Round and round he goes; sleep, sleep sound.

poem by Arthur Hugh CloughReport problemRelated quotes
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