If ever a creature represented change, it’s the butterfly, and we could all learn a few lessons from this gentle, beautiful insect as it moves through the various stages of life. There’s something so magical about the way their colorful wings carry them weightlessly through the air, and that weightlessness can be looked upon as a wonderful metaphor for carrying – or not – the burdens we weigh ourselves down with.
The subject of poems and painting alike, this delicate creature has inspired many to create beautiful works of art, but the most beautiful of all is the work in progress that is us. Read through these beautiful butterfly quotes to see just how we can compare ourselves to this fragile yet incredibly strong insect, and what we can learn from its short, colorful life as it transforms from a plain caterpillar to a stunning mosaic of beauty.
Butterflies only live for an average of 4 weeks – some longer and some shorter – but they pack so much color and travel into their fleeting existence that they make every second count. Work your way through this list of butterfly quotes, and you will begin to see how you can metamorphosize yourself into whatever you want to be, without the weight of the expectations of others sitting heavily on your shoulders.
“Go on, hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly. There’s no better way to fly.” – Train, “Get To Me”
“The butterfly flits from bloom to bloom, as not to miss one fragrant plume. In her sight exists no garden finale, only paradise of flowered hill and valley.” – K. D’Angelo
“As with the butterfly, adversity is necessary to build character in people.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
“Story is a butterfly whose wings transport us to another world where we receive gifts that change who we are and who we want to be.” – Harley King
“If there is one creature that represents my essence, it’s butterflies.” – Patricia Velasquez
“…Nine butterflies appear within an hour, not on the wing but in the word, bringing a message of transformation and hope.” – Carol Lynn Pearson
“Do you remember how you felt at seventeen? I do and I don’t (…) Imagine you came from outer space and someone showed you a butterfly and a caterpillar. Would you ever put the two of them together? That’s me and my memories.” – Douglas Coupland
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“They can’t stop talking about my transformation. I can only do it once in my lifetime. If only they knew, they can do it at any time and in countless ways.” – Dodinsky
“We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis.” – LeeAnn Taylor
“Let us find inner freedom in each lucky moment that we encounter, like a sun-basking butterfly that finds peace on a cherry blossom petal.” – Erik Pevernagie
“This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.” – Joseph Conrad
“You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” – Trina Paulus
“Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness and still become something beautiful.” – Unknown
“Butterfly upon my hand, A voice of wonder within my mind, not my own but the butterfly’s.” – Jazz Feylynn
“Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies.” – Federico Garcia Lorca
“Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile.” – George Sand
“You put butterflies back into my soul and painted their wings with passion and poetry.” – Melody Lee
“Butterflies are nature’s angels. They remind us what a gift it is to be alive.” – Robyn Nola
“I have grown up on a diet of sunrise picnics, learning the names of butterflies, planting trees.” – Dia Marza
“Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.” – Naya Rivera
“Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who’ve been in love with the wrong man too often.” – Alice Hoffman
“We can learn a lesson from the butterfly beginning its life crawling along the ground, then spinning a cocoon, patiently waiting until the day it will fly.” – Heather Wolf, Kipnuk the Talking Dog
“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. ― Jean” – Dominique Bauby
“The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can effect climate changes on the other side of the planet.” – Paul Erlich
“Love is like a butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.” – Author Unknown
“I’d be a butterfly; living a rover, Dying when fair things are fading away.” – Thomas Haynes Bayly
“If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn’t be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn’t know that, so it flies.” – Howard Schultz
“Nature was one of the key forces that brought me back to God, for I wanted to know the Artist responsible for beauty such as I saw on grand scale in photos from space telescopes or on minute scale such as in the intricate designs on a butterfly wing.” – Philip Yancey
“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
“Do ye not comprehend that we are worms born to bring forth the angelic butterfly that flieth unto judgment without screen?” – Dante Alighieri
“Never touch a butterfly’s wing with your finger.” – Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
“A flower knows, when its butterfly will return, and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand; but now it hurts, to watch you leave so soon, when I don’t know, if you will ever come back.” – Sanober Khan
“Of all the butterflies that chose to stay, I’m in love with the one that got away.” – Laura Miller
“I have four or five ideas that just keep floating around and I want to kind of just let one – like a beautiful butterfly, let it land somewhere.” – Gillian Flynn
“Soar up high with the beauty and grace of a butterfly.” – Unknown
“Doing voiceovers is so great because even though many people would think it’s just your voice, you really do use all your physicality. I’ve done everything from playing a butterfly to Alice in Wonderland when she’s 10 feet tall, so it allows you to be an actor and build new characters.” – Ashley Bell
“What’s a butterfly garden without butterflies?” – Roy Rogers
“When a caterpillar bursts from its cocoon and discovers it has wings, it does not sit idly, hoping to one day turn back. It flies.” – Kelseyleigh Reber
“I welcome all butterflies into my heart because that feeling is a constant reminder of how alive and full of love I truly am.” – Karen A. Baquiran
“Like a butterfly stuck in a chrysalis, waiting for the perfect moment, I was waiting for the day I could burst forth and fly away and find my home.” – Emme Rollins
“You do not just wake up and become the butterfly. Growth is a process.” – Rupi Kaur
“Open your heart and mind like the wings of a butterfly. See then how high you CAN fly.” – Zeenat Aman
“We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest, the butterflies, the song of the birds, if we can’t see the stars at night.” – Thomas Berry
“The uglier the caterpillar the lovelier the butterfly.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
“The power of Butterfly must be, the Aptitude to fly, meadows of majesty concedes, and easy sweeps of sky.” – Emily Dickinson
“Large flocks of butterflies, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in a perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness.” – John Muir
“Since when does the butterfly ask about the caterpillar?” – Cornelia Funke
“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” – Carl Sagan
“When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.” – Dean Jackson
“Just when the caterpillar thought I am incapable of moving, it became a butterfly.” – Annette Thomas
“The possibilities for immortality are endless. Here you sit reading these words, a butterfly resting on a flower!” – Frederick Lenz
“It’s the butterflies in our bellies, and the lightening in our eyes that tells me this all makes so much fucking sense.” – LeAnne Mechelle
“I don’t really go out partying, but I’m definitely a social butterfly.” – Eliza Doolittle
“Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average lifespan is a mere five to fourteen days.” – Ellen DeGeneres
“When I was a cute little caterpillar, you loved me. So I became a butterfly so you would never leave.” – Crystal Woods
“Everybody knows what a caterpillar is, and it doesn’t look anything like a butterfly.” – Lynn Margulis
“Beauty is where the beheld butterfly disappears from sight.” – R.H. Peat
“Failure is like a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly.” – Peta Kelly
“When I was a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.” – Anna Pavlova
“Just living is not enough, said the butterfly, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Andersen
“Awaken to the universes simple gift of the butterfly. Watch with fascination and joy as a jeweled treasure glides by and gently touches your soul.” – K. D’Angelo
“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” – George Carlin
“The butterflies have flown away, like my ignorance and youth.” – Eileen Granfors
“Butterflies are the most beautiful creatures ever. They should call them beautiflies, don’t you think?” – Richelle E. Goodrich
“And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy happiness.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“You can only chase a butterfly for so long.” – Jane Yolen
“Life without pain is a life spent in a cocoon. You gotta break the cocoon to experience your beauty.” – Shubhi
“Butterflies are nature’s tragic heroes. They live most of their lives being completely ordinary. And then, one day, the unexpected happens. They burst from their cocoons in a blaze of colors and become utterly extraordinary. It is the shortest phase of their lives, but it holds the greatest importance. It shows us how empowering change can be.” – Kelseyleigh Reber
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” – Maya Angelou
“Take time to be a butterfly.” – Gillian Duce, The Winning Game (Magic and Mayhem #2)
“A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.” – André Gide
“For when ideas flutter in haze, we collaborate without notice and collect them as butterflies only to set them free into the world.” – Shawn Lukas
“Just living isn’t enough, said the butterfly, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Anderson
“Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring.” – Unknown
“Go on, hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly. There’s no better way to fly.” – Patrick Monahan
“The butterfly does not count the months of its life but rather it counts the moments and yet all the time it has is still enough.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“When I was a girl, I would look out my bedroom window at the caterpillars; I envied them so much. No matter what they were before, no matter what happened to them, they could just hide away and turn into these beautiful creatures that could fly away completely untouched.” – Carin, Patch Adams
“Nature’s message was always there and for us to see. It was written on the wings of butterflies.” – Kjell B. Sandved
“The butterfly is a flying flower. The flower is a tethered butterfly.” – Ponce Denis
“Somebody like Bowie was so interesting because when you got him off stage, he was like a businessman. But on stage, he was just dazzling. It was like watching butterflies grow.” – D.A. Pennebaker
“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?” – Chuang Tzu
“Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average life span is a mere five to fourteen days.” – Ellen DeGeneres
“Butterflies love to be out in the sunshine, just like people. You can look for them on warm, bright sunny days.” – John Woodward
“With the rose the butterfly’s deep in love, A thousand times hovering round; But round himself, all tender like gold, The sun’s sweet ray is hovering found.” – Heinrich Heine
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” – John Keats
“Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season.” – Philip Pullman
“It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.” – Ram Dass
“A butterfly symbolized acceptance of each new phase in life. To keep faith as everything around you changed.” – Lisa Kleypas
“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.” – Vladimir Nabokov
“He was comparing you to the butterflies that you both adore and cherish, and he said you were special for the same reasons: you were rare, exotic and entirely you. He said you’re beautiful exactly the way are now.” – Cecelia Ahern
“Butterflies are self-propelled flowers.” – R.H. Heinlein
“They seemed to suddenly come upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in a winter wood.” – Edith Wharton
“It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.” – Author Unknown
“Don’t waste your time chasing butterflies. Mend your garden, and the butterflies will come.” – Mario Quintana
“Butterflies, they are like dream flowers, childhood dreams, which have broken loose from their stalks and escaped into the sunshine.” – Unknown
“The butterflies…What an educated sense of beauty they have. They seem only an ornament to society, and yet, if they were gone, how substantial would be their loss.” – Phil Robinson
“A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” – Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
“Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.” – Cornelia Funke
“Americans consider the butterfly a symbol of good fortune and some tribes believe they bring the blessing of sleep and peaceful dreams.” – Tom Frost
“I would like to think that the singer is the butterfly, and the drummer was just the little grub in the ground, working to become a caterpillar.” – Robert Wyatt
“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Thou cannot harm a butterfly, without troubling a star.” – Madeleine L’Engle
“Oh, gross. Your stomach is full of butterfly barf!” – Laini Taylor
“The sound of a million butterflies flapping their wings is indescribable. It’s very heavenly.” – Louie Schwatzberg
“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies. – Antoine de Saint” – Exupery
“Self-realization is a strange term. You don’t actually realize yourself. If anything, you go away. The caterpillar enters the cocoon of meditation: A butterfly emerges, metamorphosis.” – Frederick Lindemann
“Alongside the practical thought something else struggled and, like an escaped butterfly, took wing: the assurance of something wonderful awaiting her. Just around the corner.” – Norah Lofts
“The great loneliness- like the loneliness a caterpillar endures when she wraps herself in a silky shroud and begins the long transformation from chrysalis to butterfly. It seems we too must go through such a time, when life as we have known it is over- when being a caterpillar feels somehow false and yet we don’t know who we are supposed to become. All we know is that something bigger is calling us to change. And though we must make the journey alone, and even if suffering is our only companion, soon enough we will become a butterfly, soon enough we will taste the rapture of being alive.” – Elizabeth Lesser
“Catching butterflies won’t give you a taste of freedom but the knowledge that weights are not carried in wings.” – Goitsemang Mvula
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