Swan Quotes

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more. (William Cowper)
When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green And every goose a swan, lad And every lass a queen Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow. View quote
William Wordsworth
We were the best team in the world: European champions in 1984, we qualified without a hitch and 86 was to be the swan song for a very experienced side. View quote
Michel Patini
I think it requires a bit of honesty, Swan Lake. View quote
Graeme Murphy
Who may be called a paramahamsa? He who, like a swan, can take the milk from a mixture of milk and water, leaving aside the water. He who, like an ant, can take the sugar from a mixture of sugar and sand, leaving aside the sand. View quote
Ramakrishna
Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan. View quote
Epictetus
If you're looking for monogamy, you'd better marry a swan. View quote
Nora Ephron
Remember that you are a Black Swan. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
There's a double beauty whenever a swan Swims on a lake with her double thereon. View quote
Thomas Hood
Get my swan costume ready. (Anna Pavlova)
I'm telling you, the gorgeous of the world can actually look pretty intimidating when they scowl. Imagine a snow-white swan with a scary tattoo holding a chain saw. There's just no way to really prepare for that. View quote
Jim Benton
Swan Lake is the most difficult thing to portray for a female ballet dancer; it really requires such specific qualities of articulation, agility, strength, and the arm work is something that takes a lot of training. View quote
Benjamin Millepied
The silver swan, who, living had no note, When death approached unlocked her silent throat. View quote
Orlando Gibbons
I had seen the ballet of 'Swan Lake' as a child but it was as an adult, when I saw a production featuring Erik Bruhn, that I first noticed how significant a part the ever-present threat of violence played. This juxtaposition of great beauty and grace with a backdrop of pure evil stayed with me for years. View quote
Walter Dean Myers
I have had so many great moments, but I would have to say that dancing the Swan in 'Swan Lake' was such a unique and passionate experience for me. It was such bloody hard work, even at that very early age, that I would not want to try to replicate it again now. View quote
William Kempe
Mr. Llewellyn paused. Mr. Trout had begun to float about the room like something out of Swan Lake, and Mr. Llewellyn disapproved of this. He was apt to be a martinet in his dealings with his legal advisers, demanding that lawyers should behave like lawyers and leave eccentric dancing to the professionals. A man, he held, is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Astaire, and if he is not Fred Astaire he should not carry on like him. View quote
Fred Astaire
The moon draws back its waters from the shore. By the lake's edge, I see a silver swan, And she is what I would. In this light air, Lost opposites bend down - Sing of that nothing of which all is made, Or listen into silence, like a god. View quote
Theodore Roethke
Charming ladies, the beauty of a flock of white doves is better enhanced by a black crow than by a pure white swan. View quote
Giovanni Boccaccio
The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death. View quote
Henry Miller
It is a better world with some buffalo left in it, a richer world with some gorgeous canyons unmarred by signboards, hot-dog stands, super highways, or high-tension lines, undrowned by power or irrigation reservoirs. If we preserved as parks only those places that have no economic possibilities, we would have no parks. And in the decades to come, it will not be only the buffalo and the trumpeter swan who need sanctuaries. Our own species is going to need them too. It needs them now. (Wallace Stegner)
I don't know if you have ever seen a tiger of the jungle drawing a deep breath preparatory to doing a swan dive and landing with both the feet on the backbone of one of the minor fauna. Probably not, nor, as a matter of fact, have I. View quote
P. G. Wodehouse
The reason is: rats leave the sinking ship but we... we... didn't leave, so the ship didn't sink, and that's madness, Lear's song that's Touchstone's forest jest, that's swan of Avon logic. View quote
H.D.
Did not Jupiter transforme himselfe into the shape of Amphitrio to embrace Alcmæna; into the form of a swan to enjoy Leda; into a Bull to beguile Io; into a showre of gold to win Danae? View quote
John Lyly
Can it be the sun descending o'er the level plain of water or the Red Swan floating, flying wounded by the Magic Arrow? Staining all the waves with crimson, with the crimson of its life-blood, filling all the air with splendor, filling all the air with plumage? [...] O'er it the Star of Evening melts and trembles through the purple, hangs suspensed in twilight, walks in silence through the heavens... View quote
Mike Oldfield