William Shakespeare Bird Quotations

The bird that hath been limed in a bush, with trembling wings misdoubteth every bush.

To be generous, guiltless, and of a free disposition is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets.

For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

Some say that ever 'gainst the season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor wi

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.

I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.

The eagle suffers little birds to sing.

Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

Like a red morn that ever yet betokened, Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

Not an angel of the air, Bird melodious or bird fair, Be absent hence!

To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair; For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.

In springtime, the only pretty ring time Birds sing, hey ding A-ding, a-ding Sweet lovers love the spring—

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself.