To become a butterfly, a caterpillar undergoes massive transformation, also known as – metamorphosis – a process that can sometimes last for up to 30 days! During this entire process, the caterpillar stays in a cocoon and at the end of it, emerges out as a beautiful butterfly.
It is this magical transformation that is inspiring in so many ways.
It teaches us that, change, even though it takes time and can be a little difficult in the beginning, can lead to beautiful results. It teaches us the value of letting go of the old, in order to discover the new. It helps us realize the value of growth, patience, perseverance, adaptation and faith.
This article is a collection 25 butterfly quotes that I personally find inspirational. In addition, each one of these quotes carries with it a powerful message.
Here are the quotes:
1. “A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” – Mandy Hale
2. “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
3. “Representation is vital, otherwise the butterfly surrounded by a group of moths unable to see itself will keep trying to become the moth – representation.” – Rupi Kaur
4. “Just living isn’t enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Anderson
5. “How does one become a butterfly? You have to want to learn to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” – Trina Paulus
6. “The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.” – Tom Robbins
7. “Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookies in your milk. Take a nap. Say you’re sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again.” – Max Lucado
8. “When God becomes glad with our good works, then He sends the cute animals, birds, butterflies etc. near us like a signal to express His happiness!” – Md. Ziaul
9. “Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.” – Drew Barrymore
10. “Failure is like a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly.” – Peta Kelly
11. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” – Maya Angelou
12. Butterflies 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
13. “If nothing ever changed, there would be no such things as butterflies.” – Wendy Mass
14. “Don’t be afraid. Change is such a beautiful thing”, said the Butterfly.” – Sabrina Newby
15. “Take time to be a butterfly.” – Gillian Duce
16. “Be like a butterfly and a flower—beautiful and sought after, yet unassuming and gentle.” – Jarod Kintz
17. “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – Rabindranath Tagore
18. “Forgetting… is a beautiful thing. When you forget, you remake yourself… For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must forget it was a caterpillar at all. Then it will be as if the caterpillar never was & there was only ever a butterfly.” – Robert Jackson Bennett
19. “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
20. “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” – Henry David Thoreau
21. “The butterfly does not look back upon its caterpillar self, either fondly or wistfully; it simply flies on.” – Guillermo del Toro
22. “You do not just wake up and become the butterfly. Growth is a process.” – Rupi Kaur
23. “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
24. “It is all too common for caterpillars to become butterflies and then to maintain that in their youth they had been little butterflies. Maturation makes liars of us all.” – George Vaillant
25. “Caterpillars can fly, if they just lighten up.” – Scott J. Simmerman Ph.D.
26. “There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – Buckminster R. Fuller
27. “We can learn a lesson from the butterfly beginning it’s life crawling along the ground, then spinning a cocoon, patiently waiting until the day it will fly.” – Heather Wolf
28.
“How does one become butterfly?’ Pooh asked pensively.
‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar,’ Piglet replied.
‘You mean to die?’ asked Pooh.
‘Yes and no,’ he answered. ‘What looks like you will die, but what’s really you will live on.”
– A.A. Milne
29. “As with the butterfly, adversity is necessary to build character in people.” Joseph B.
Wirthlin
30. “Butterflies are self propelled flowers.” – Robert A. Heinlein
31. “Butterflies add another dimension to the garden, for they are like dream flowers – childhood dreams – which have broken loose from their stalks and escaped into the sunshine.” – Miriam Rothschild
32. “Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile.” – George Sand
33. “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
34. “I learned about the sacred art of self decoration with the monarch butterflies perched atop my head, lightning bugs as my night jewelry, and emerald-green frogs as bracelets.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
35. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another. Without butterflies, the world would soon have few flowers.” – Trina Paulus
36. “Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.” – Vladimir Nabokov
Also Read: 25 Inspirational Nature Quotes With Important Life Lessons.
