These Owl quotes will inspire you. Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging Owl quotes, Owl sayings, and Owl proverbs.
Famous Owl Quotes
- “The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that won’t believe.
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbeliever’s fright.” ~ William Blake - “The owl is one of the most curious creatures. A bird that stays awake when the rest of the world sleeps. They can see in the dark. I find that so interesting, to be mired in reality when the rest of the world is dreaming. What does he see and what does he know that the rest of the world is missing?” ~ M.J. Rose
- “An owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees the less it talks.” ~ Christie Watson
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“The crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.” ~ William Blake
- “The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits.” ~ William Shakespeare
- “There was a wise old owl who sat in a tree
The less he spoke the more he heard
The more he heard the less he spoke
Why can’t we be like that wise old owl in the tree?
Speech must die to serve that which is spoken.” ~ Paul Ricoeur - “Owls are known as lonely birds; but it is not known that they have the forest as their best friend!” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“Don’t count your owls before they are delivered.” ~ J. K. Rowling
- “I am both a night owl and an early bird. So I am wise and I have worms.” ~ Steve Carell , Night owl quotes
- “The wailing owl screams solitary to the mournful moon.” ~ David Mallet
- “The owls are gathering; find out why soon.” ~ J. K. Rowling
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“The little owls call to each other with tremulous, quavering voices throughout the livelong night, as they sit in the creaking trees.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
- “What we want most is to be held…and told..that everything (everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and papa’s eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot owls and the boy who makes you cry after school, is mama’s long hair, is being afraid and twisted faces on the bedroom wall)…is going to be alright.” ~ Truman Capote
- “An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn’t hear it–I breathed it into my ears.” ~ William Stafford
- “Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried,
Brooding o’er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar.” ~ George Meredith -
“The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.” ~ Victor Hugo
- “She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl’s eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves.” ~ Patricia A. McKillip
- “She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.” ~ Alan Garner
- “Marriage is a wrestling match where you hold on tight while your mate changes into a hundred different things. The trick is that you’re changing into a hundred other things, but you can’t let go. You can only try to match up and never turn into a wolf while he’s a rabbit, or a mouse while he’s still busy being an owl, a brawny black bull while he’s a little blue crab scuttling for shelter. It’s harder than it sounds.” ~ Catherynne M. Valente
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“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- “When a person hasn’t in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog’s bark in every sound.” ~ Anton Chekhov
- “In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral Owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
But at the dusk–he’s abroad and well!
Not a bird of the forest e’er mates with him–
All mock him outright, by day:
But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
The boldest will shrink away!
O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,
Then, then, is the reign of the Horned Owl!” ~ Bryan Procter - “In the enemy’s territory, be as silent as the owl’s wings; in friend’s territory, be as cheerful as the nightingale’s songs.” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“If I was an owl, I would peck your eyes out. Wow this lyric is ****ing brilliant.” ~ Thom Yorke
- “Why should I copy this owl, this sea urchin? Why should I try to imitate nature? I might just as well try to trace a perfect circle.” ~ Pablo Picasso
- “The owl and the pussycat went to sea, / In a beautiful pea green boat. / They took some honey, and plenty of money, / Wrapped up in a five pound note.” ~ Edward Lear
- “I have learned that one of the most important rules in politics is poise – which means looking like an owl after you have behaved like a jackass.” ~ Ronald Reagan
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“Thou ominous and fearful owl of death.” ~ William Shakespeare
- “Oft in the silence of the night,
When the lonely moon rides high,
When wintry winds are whistling,
And we hear the owl’s shrill cry,
In the quiet, dusky chamber,
By the flickering firelight,
Rising up between two sleepers,
Comes a spirit all in white.” ~ Louisa May Alcott - “Midnight is another planet! When the clock strikes twelve and if you are asleep, wake up, friend, and discover the beauties of this new planet: Discover the silence; discover the tranquillity; speak to the owls, speak to the moon; greet the hedgehogs and disappear in the midst of the mists!” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan
- “Other sound than the owl’s voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.” ~ Charles Dickens
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“Some men pray only when the world is dark, as owls hoot at night.” ~ Austin O’Malley
- “Owls are wise. They are careful and patient. Wisdom precludes boldness. That is why owls make poor heroes.” ~ Patrick Rothfuss
- “There was an old man with a beard, who said: ‘It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard.” ~ Edward Lear
- “But the owls themselves are not hard to find, silent and on the wing, with their ear tufts flat against their heads as they fly and their huge wings alternately gliding and flapping as they maneuver through the trees. Athena’s owl of wisdom and Merlin’s companion, Archimedes, were screech owls surely, not this bird with the glassy gaze, restless on the bough, nothing but blood on its mind.” ~ Mary Oliver , Owl quotes wisdom
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“Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?” ~ Jonathan Swift
- “I like owls. I admire their intransigent spirit. I have respected them deeply ever since I met a baby owl in a wood, when it fell over dead, apparently from sheer temper, because I dared to approach it. It defied me first, and then died. I have never forgotten the horror and shame I experienced when that soft fluffy thing (towards which I had nothing but the most humanitarian motives) fell dead from rage at my feet.” ~ Vita Sackville-West
- “She had always lived her best life in dreams. She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl’s wings and talons and became other than conscious.” ~ John Crowley
- “A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let’s emulate that wise old bird.” ~ Flann O’Brien
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“Owl hasn’t exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things.” ~ A. A. Milne
- “A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
- “If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.” ~ Terry Goodkind
- “I’m a night owl, and luckily my profession supports that. The best ideas come to me in the dead of night.” ~ Josh Fox
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“First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. & And second, what can I say? I’m a night owl.” ~ John M Barry
- “Death’s a funny thing. I used to think it was a big, sudden thing, like a huge owl that would swoop down out of the night and carry you off. I don’t anymore. I think it’s a slow thing. Like a thief who comes to your house day after day, taking a little thing here and a little thing there, and one day you walk round your house and there’s nothing there to keep you, nothing to make you want to stay. And then you lie down and shut up forever. Lots of little deaths until the last big one.” ~ Neil Gaiman
- “Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, and Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the forest.” ~ Benjamin Hoff
- “The owl, that bird of onomatopoetic name, is a repetitious question wrapped in feathery insulation especially for Winter delivery.” ~ Hal Borland
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“No owl is afraid of the night, no snake of the swamp and no traitor of the treason!” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan
- “Then what shall I write? I can’t just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I’ll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.” ~ David Almond
- “If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there arenight owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait,
His day’s hot task hath ended in the west:
The owl, night’s herald, shrieks-’tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest;
And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven’s light,
Do summon us to part, and bid good night.” ~ William Shakespeare -
“I’m like an owl… I don’t give a HOOT!” ~ Si Robertson
- “The owl flies, in the moonlight, over a field where the wounded cry out. Like the owl, I fly in the night over my own misfortune.” ~ Georges Bataille
- “Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “It is daffodil time, so the robins all cry, For the sun’s a big daffodil up in the sky, And when down the midnight the owl call to-whoo! Why then the round moon is a daffodil too; Now sheer to the bough-tops the sap starts to climb, So, merry my masters, it’s daffodil time.” ~ Clinton Scollard
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“At home, I love reaching out into that absolute silence, when you can hear the owl or the wind.” ~ Amanda Harlech
- “The thing about owls is that they do sort of have this facial disc, which is unlike any other bird. They kind of have a face, more than like a dog or a giraffe. They have this weird, alien face that you can actually make expressive.” ~ Zack Snyder
- “I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die.” ~ Mark Twain
- “Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.” ~ David Almond
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“You can’t hoot with the owls and then soar with the eagles” ~ Hubert H. Humphrey
- “Night is done, gone the moon, gone the stars From the skies. Fades the black of night Comes the morn with rosy light. Fold your wings, go to sleep, Rest your gizzards, Safe you’ll be for the day. Glaux is nigh. Far away is first black, But it shall seep back Over field Over flower In the twilight hour. We are home in our tree. We are owls, we are free. As we go, this we know Glaux is nigh.” ~ Kathryn Lasky
- “The eastern light our spires touch at morning, The light that slants upon our western doors at evening, The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight, Moon light and star light, owl and moth light, Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade. O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!” ~ T. S. Eliot
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“Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” ~ Adam Young
- “The day my father died seemed longer than my entire childhood. The day I felt my first success seemed fleeting, hour-long, not long enough perhaps. I wondered where it went. Even the cycle of time confounds me. I work till dark, until sunrise on most days and fall asleep as the world awakens to light. My friends call me an owl. I like to think of myself as Batman – the prince of darkness.” ~ Shahrukh Khan
- “Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light of day.” ~ James A. Garfield
