Freeflying Cockatoos

A COLLECTION OF QUOTES AND POEMS ON THE MAGIC OF FLIGHT

Flight Quotes

Thou art an eagle, thou doest belong to the sky and not to the earth, stretch forth thy wings and fly. — Paul H Dunn

Birds in flight, claims the architect Vincenzo Volentieri, are not between places -- they carry their places with them. We never wonder where they live: they are at home in the sky, in flight. Flight is their way of being in the world. — Geoff Dyer

"What is joy? It is a bird That we all want to catch. It is the same bird That we all love to see flying." ~ Sri Chinmoy

"Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings." ~ C. Archie Danielson

"Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water." ~ D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966)

"The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp." ~ John Berry

"No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." ~ William Blake (1757-1827)

"But I decline to show any respect for those who first of all clip the bird and cage the squirrel, rivet the chains and refuse the freedom, close all the doors of the cosmic prison on us with a clang of eternal iron, tell us that our emancipation is a dream and our dungeon a necessity; and then calmly turn round and tell us they have a freer thought and a more liberal theology." ~ Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936)

Can the magic of flight ever be carried by words? I think not. — Michael Parfit, 'Smithsonian' magazine, May 2000

The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine. — Plato, 'Phaedrus'

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things . . . — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things. Knows not the livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain heights, where bitter joy can hear The sound of wings. — Amelia Earhart

"...and once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return." -- Leonardo da Vinci

"Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly." ~ James Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

"A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wings." ~ Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)

It is not the visions but the activity which makes you happy, and the joy and glory of the flier is the flight itself. . . — Isak Dinesen, 'Out of Africa,' 1937

Until now I have never really lived! Life on earth is a creeping, crawling business. It is in the air that one feels the glory of being alive and of conquering the elements. There is an exquisite smoothness of motion and the joy of gliding through space. It is wonderful! — Gabriele D'Annunzio, 1909

Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground. — Richard Bach, 'A Gift of Wings,' 1974

Flyers have a sense of adventures yet to come, instead of dimly recalling adventures of long ago as the only moments in which they truly lived. — Richard Bach, 'A Gift of Wings,' 1974

To fly! Like them to ride the skyways from horizon to horizon, across rivers and forests! To free oneself from the petty disputes of everyday life, to be active, to feel the blood renewed in one's vein -- ah! that is life. . . . Life is finer and simpler. My will is freer. I appreciate everything more, sunlight and shade, work and my friends. The sky is vast. I breathe deep gulps of the fine clear air of the heights. I feel myself to have achieved a higher state of physical strength and a clearer brain. I am living in the third dimension! — Henri Mignoet, 'L'Aviation de L'Amateur; Le Sport de l'Air,' 1934

We are all pirates at heart. There is not one of us who hasn't had a little larceny in his soul. And which one of us wouldn't soar if God had thought there was merit in the idea? So, when we see one of those great widespread pirates soaring across the grain of sea winds we thrill, and we long, and, if we are honest, we curse that we must be men every day. Why not one day a bird! There's an idea, now, one day out of seven a pirate in the sky. What puny power a man can attain by comparison. Compare a 747 with a bird and blush! — Roger Caras, 'Birds and Flight,' 1971

Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world. — Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden

We thought humble and proud at the same time, all at once in love again with this painful bittersweet lovely thing called flight. — Richard Bach, 'A Gift of Wings,' 1974

"It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill." ~ Wilbur Wright (1867-1912)

"A Fly can't bird, but a bird can fly." - A A Milne

Flight Poems

Flight is freedom in its purest form,
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;

To roll and glide, to wheel and spin,
To feel the joy that swells within;

To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;

Then back to earth at the end of a day,
Released from the tensions which melted away.

Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;

Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again;

For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.

— Gary Claud Stokor

OTHER PEOPLE'S FRIGHT

Standing on a hill,
wind in my hair.
Looking at the sky
and the birds over there.

I want to join them
in their flight.
But I am grounded ...
by others people fright.

- by Koen Van de Kerckhove

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
and they flew.

— Christopher Logue

"Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will."

~ T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

"He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty."

~ William Blake (1757-1827)

"Be like a bird
That pausing in her flight
Awhile on boughs to light,
Feels them give way
Beneath her and yet sings,
Knowing that she hath wings."

~ Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885)

"The bird let loose in Eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;
But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way."

~ Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

"Time is swift, it races by;
Opportunities are born and die...
Still you wait and will not try —
A bird with wings who dares not rise and fly."

~ Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956)

I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

-Maya Angelou

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

- John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

And when the goals are reached at last,
When all the flyings done,
I'll answer Him with no regret-
Indeed, I had some fun.

So when these things are asked of me,
And I can reach no higher,
My prayer this day - His hand extends
To welcome home a Flyer.

— Patrick J. Phillips

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave! where is thy victory?
O death! where is thy sting?

— Alexander Pope

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