Red Tailed Hawk Quotes ● 71 Inspirational Sayings, Proverbs, Lyrics, Songs and Poems
These red tailed hawk quotes cover birds of prey and falconry. Dive right in to these inspiring quotes, poems, sayings, lyrics and proverbs.
Hawk Quotes and Sayings
A hawk in flight
Anyone who has ever stopped to watch a hawk in flight will know that it’s one of the natural world’s most elegant phenomena.
-John Burnside
Scottish poet and writer John Burnside takes inspiration from nature, the environment and ecology.
Sparrows and hawks
In this world of ours, the sparrow must live like a hawk if he is to fly at all.
Hayao Miyazaki
This Japanese animator, director, screenwriter, author and manga artist is famous as a co-founder of Studio Ghibli
I have need of the sky
I have need of the sky,
I have business with the grass;
I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling
Lone and high,
And the slow clouds go by.
I will get me away to the waters that glass
The clouds as they pass.
I will get me away to the woods.
Richard Hovey, I Have Need of the Sky
American poet Richard Hovey lived in the late 1800s and published several volumes of tramp and vagabond verse.
Aerial brother
The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.
Henry David Thoreau
Transcendentalist and naturalist Henry David Thoreau reflected upon simple living in natural surroundings.
The hawk was everything
The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.
Helen Macdonald
English falconer, writer and naturalist Helen Macdonald authored the book “H is for Hawk.” In this memoir, she tells the story of the year she spent training a goshawk after her father’s death.
Hawk and Sparrow
Hawk and sparrow
Hope and fear
Rainbow and arrow
Laughter and tear
Noa, Hawk and Sparrow
The Hawk (Hayne)
Till, like a fierce, embodied ray,
He hurtles down the dazzling day,—
A death-flash on his startled prey;
Paul Hamilton Hayne, The Hawk
The Island Hawk
Who fashioned the scimitar wings of the hawk,
Bent beak and arrowy breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the sun’s bright way?
Flee—flee—for I quest, I quest.
Alfred Noyes, The Island Hawk
To a Marsh Hawk in Spring
There is health in thy gray wing,
Health of nature’s furnishing.
Say, thou modern-winged antique,
Was thy mistress ever sick?
In each heaving of thy wing
Thou dost health and leisure bring,
Thou dost waive disease and pain
And resume new life again.
Henry David Thoreau, To a Marsh Hawk in Spring
The Hawk (Yeats)
‘I will not be clapped in a hood,
Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,
Now I have learnt to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.’
William Butler Yeats, The Hawk
The shadow of the hawk
You missed the shadow of the hawk on the vole if you think how wonderfully free a vole is!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
The eagle and the hawk
I am the hawk and there’s blood in my feathers,
But time is still turning they soon will be dry.
And all those who see me and all who believe in me,
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly.”
John Denver, The Eagle and the Hawk
Singer-songwriter John Denver also advocated for the environment. Many of his songs focused on the joys of nature, like the inspiring song The Eagle and the Hawk.
Roll me away
Stood alone on a mountain top, starin’ out at the Great Divide.
I could go east, I could go west, it was all up to me to decide.
Just then I saw a young hawk flyin’ and my soul began to rise.
Bob Seger
Heartland rocker Bob Seger sings about the desire to be free and the feeling of infinite possibilities in Roll Me Away.
Snow and thaw
To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear. … To a rough-legged hawk, a thaw means freedom from want and fear.
Aldo Leopold
Author and conservationist Aldo Leopold developed important ideas behind the science of wildlife management.
The wind swept sky
The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky
The deer to the wholesome wold
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.
Rudyard Kipling
English poet and writer Rudyard Kipling wrote children’s books that are still famous today, along with verses like the one above.
The Wild Hawk
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak
And stared with his foot on the prey.
Alfred Tennyson, The Poet’s Song
British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, used powerful imagery and explored mythology in his works.
Golden cages
Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They were far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Although American writer Lois McMaster Bujold focuses on fantasy and sci fi, she captures the spirit of the natural world.
Beautiful and deadly
I never knew a woman could be fierce and beautiful and smart before I met you. Every time I see you I think of a hawk, beautiful and deadly.
Patrick W. Carr
Writers and birds
A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this too remember; 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
American writer Hemingway often included wilderness as a theme in his works.
Beautiful and wild
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant. You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him; Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him; Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.
John Robinson Jeffers
Jeffers, an icon of the environmental movement, derived passion from “the astonishing beauty of things. “
More hawk than human
We have come out of the world and are free, more hawk than human, we’ve given our hearts to the hawk to keep
John Robinson Jeffers, Give Your Heart to the Hawks
Young Hawks
We’re going until the world changes, you and I like the young hawks
Going hunting, we’ll take the world by the throat and make him give us
What we desire
John Robinson Jeffers, Give Your Heart to the Hawks
Logically
You think so logically…like a hawk soaring – I feel so chaotically…like a kite without a tail plummeting to earth.
John Geddes
The Chicken and the Hawk
Fell head over heels for that hawk’s sweet talk
She said, “Take me up hawky, take me up in the sky
Big Joe Turner, The Chicken and the Hawk
The Spirit of the Hawk
He and my hero, he and my love
High on a hill side, heaven above
Take me to higher love, you fly away
Me and my hero, me and my love
The spirit of the hawk
Rednex, The Spirit of the Hawk
Hawks and Doves
Got people here down on their knees and prayin’
Hawks and doves are circlin’ in the rain
Got rock and roll, got country music playin’
If you hate us, you just don’t know what you’re sayin’.
Neil Young, Hawks and Doves
Silence
Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.
Ursula K. Le Guin
American author Le Guin famously wrote the Earthsea fantasy series.
Hears the hawk
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay the insect’s gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
Alexander Pope, Essays on Man
Poet and author Alexander Pope’s Essays on Man explore the natural order and the theme that “Whatever IS, is RIGHT.” Philomela refers to nightingales.
Hamlet
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Henry V
When I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk.
William Shakespeare, Henry V
Henry VI, Part II
No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My lord protector’s hawks do tower so well;
They know their master loves to be aloft
And bears his thoughts above his falcon’s pitch.
Henry VI, Part I
William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part I
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch.
William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I
The Taming of the Shrew
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark.
William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
The Fisherman’s Hymn
She rears her young on yonder tree;
She leaves her faithful mate to mind ’em;
Like us, for fish she sails to sea,
And, plunging, shows us where to find ’em.
Yo, ho, my hearts! let’s seek the deep,
Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her,
While slow the bending net we sweep,
God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher.
Alexander Wilson, The Fisherman’s Hymn.
British writer Alexander Wilson also served as an MI6 officer and a spy!
Biblical quotes about hawks
Job 39:16
Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, and spread its wings towards the south?
The Bible, Job, 39:26
In this verse, God asks Job questions about the rules of nature that animals like hawks instinctively follow.
Isaiah 34:15
There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.
The Bible, Isaiah, 34:15
This verse references the hawk’s monogamous relationship and importance of caring for one’s offspring.
Hawk Proverbs
African Hawk Proverbs
When the cock is drunk, he forgets about the hawk.
African Proverb
It is unwise for one to think that a hen will ever be accorded respect in the land of the hawks.
African Proverb
Let the kite hawk have a perch, and let the eagle also have a perch. Whichever begrudges the other the right to perch, may he break a wing.
Igbo Proverb
It is unwise for one to think that a hen will ever be accorded respect in the land of the hawks.
African Proverb
The chicken is never declared in the court of hawks.
African Proverb
The drum sounds when the hawk appears with a rabbit.
Nigerian Proverb
French proverbs
A hawk’s marriage: the hen is the better bird.
French Proverb
In hawks, hounds, arms, and love, for one leisure a thousand pains.
French Proverb
You cannot make a hawk of a buzzard.
French Proverb
Danish proverbs
It is hard to lure hawks with empty hands.
Danish Proverb
Pheasants are fools if they invite the hawk to dinner.
Danish Proverb
Japanese Proverbs
Even a superb hawk will not catch game unless it is loosed.
Japanese Proverb
The hawk with talent hides its talons.
Japanese Proverb
The sparrow flying behind the hawk thinks the hawk is fleeing.
Japanese Proverb
If you see Mt. Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant on New Year’s Day, you will be forever blessed.
Japanese Proverb
Scots Proverbs
Hunting, hawking, and paramours, for one joy, a hundred displeasures.
Scots Proverb
With empty hand, should no man hawks allure.
Scots Proverb
He’s a hawk of a right nest.
Scots Proverb
Other hawk proverbs
He who makes himself a dove is eaten by the hawk.
Italian Proverb
Laws, like the spider’s webs, catch the flies and let the hawk go free.
Spanish Proverb
You’ll not find a thrush in a hawk’s nest.
Irish Proverb
He that has a hawk has three hundred partridges.
Bulgarian Proverb
A lonely old crow, see someone you know. Fly to your right, sure to be right. And if you are hawking, money before night.
Gypsy Proverb
Hawks will not pick out hawk’s eyes.
Unknown Proverb
Every bird has a hawk about it.
Croatian Proverb
A good surgeon must have a hawk’s eye, a lion’s heart, and a woman’s hand.
Dominican Republic Proverb
If we had great distant vision like a hawk we could avoid most disasters, altering our future.
Unknown Proverb
Darkovan hawk proverbs
A hawk kills because it is his nature; a man because it is his pleasure.
Darkovan Proverb
We will fly that hawk when his pinions are grown.
Darkovan Proverb
You cannot take hawks without climbing some cliffs.
Darkovan Proverb
Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote the Darkover sci-fi series, which includes the book Hawkmistress! The protagonist practices falconry.
If you are enjoying this post, you might also like Hawk Names in Mythology
Quotes about falconry
Naming hawks
There’s a superstition among falconers that a hawk’s ability is inversely proportional to the ferocity of its name. Call a hawk Tiddles and it will be a formidable hunter; call it Spitfire or Slayer and it will probably refuse to fly at all.
Helen Macdonald
Sojourner in the land
You cannot friend a hawk, they said, unless you are a hawk yourself, alone and only a sojourner in the land, without friends or the need of them.
Stephen King
Scottish Hawking Proverb
Hunting, hawking, and paramours, for one joy, a hundred displeasures.
Scots Proverb
Sun Tzu and falconry
The quality of a decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim
Sun Tzu
Master’s Wrist
Still, when all is said, somewhere one must belong: even the soaring falcon returns to its master’s wrist.
Truman Capote
Falcon’s beak
Sharp is the kiss of the falcon’s beak.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Falcon and falconer
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
My falcon
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty, and till she stoop she must not be full-gorged, for then she never looks upon her lure.
William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
A falcon loves his master
You love him as a falcon loves his master who binds and blinds it.
Cassandra Clare
Ambition
Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.
Charles Caleb Colton
Hawking and flying
I think hawking is the nearest thing to flying in this world. There you sit high up and poised light as air, the horse swift beneath you. You unhood your bird, let the jesses go and watch your falcon, its bells a-jingle, like some wild spirit take the air… and your own spirit goes with it.
Hilda Lewis
The falcon would know
If the partridge didn’t call at the wrong moment,
Neither the hunter nor the falcon would know of it.
It follows from this point also,
That everyone’s voice betrays him.
Rahman Baba
Stay where you are
I didn’t move. I’ve learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.
Tracy Chevalier
Satan’s falcon
They say “Wine is Satan’s falcon,”; apparently he uses it in hunting men!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
Red tailed hawk quotes wrap up
Follow the links to the original sources of these red tailed hawk quotes. You’ll find the full texts that really puts these beautiful and inspiring red tailed quotes into a new perspective.
Pingback: 22 Stunning Places to Watch Hawk Migration in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina ● Plus Blue Ridge Parkway - The Bird Geek
Pingback: Hawk Names in Mythology • 26 Greek, Norse, Celtic, and More Legendary Birds of Prey - The Bird Geek