Nov 30, 2022

Metamorphosis-Thoughts on The Butterfly


Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your
grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne


The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

~Rabindranath Tagore


Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have
sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”

~Hans Christian Anderson


We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

~Carl Sagan


This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

~William Butler Yeats, “Another Song of a Fool”


Not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and
fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.

~Elizabeth Goudge


The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight.

~Robert Graves, “Flying Crooked”


Know thyself!  A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly.  Whoever observes
himself arrests his own development.  A caterpillar who wanted to know
itself well would never become a butterfly.

~Andre Gide


Do ye not comprehend that we are worms,
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
That flieth unto judgment without screen?

~Dante Alighieri


Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave.
The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.

~Rabindranath Tagore
 Stray Birds

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes
it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

~Maya Angelou

The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can effect climate changes on the
other side of the planet.

~Paul Erlich

And the case of butterflies so rich it looks
As if all summer settled there and died.

~Philip Larkin, “Autumn”

Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today I saw one.  
It got on at 42nd, and off at 59th, where, I assume it was going
to Bloomingdales to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake – as
almost all hats are.

~Nikolaus Laszlo, Nora Ephron, and Delia Ephron


Butterfly quilts are still much sought after and beautifully popular. As symbols of re-birth and metamorphosis, we are drawn to their symbolic imagery of awakening to a new life, new opportunities and the chance to be 'born again' into all that we wish and dream we might become.




Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands sharing an imaginative, magical and creative journey from Alaska to Oregon and back again. Sewing, quilting and  crafting with heart and hands.

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