Beautiful and inspirational butterfly quotes have the power to help you realize how life is truly unpredictable and why is change actually a good thing.
Just as butterflies go through metamorphosis, humans do too. In fact, we go through so many changes in life that sometimes we aren’t even aware of.
But, that’s life, unpredictable and full of surprises, and it just requires us to change all the time.
You should embrace every single one of your metamorphoses and enjoy it to the fullest.
We can also learn so many things from butterflies, the most important of which is how some things can be difficult at the beginning, but with faith in ourselves and patience, the result can be pretty amazing.
If you want to learn some other important things that butterflies can teach us or if you need a good butterfly quote to wish someone a happy birthday, check out these beautiful butterfly quotes below.
Beautiful Butterfly Quotes
1. “A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam, and for a brief moment, its glory and beauty belong to our world… but then it flies again, and though we wish it could have stayed… We feel lucky to have seen it.” – Unknown
2. “Someday, I will be a beautiful butterfly, and then everything will be better.” – A Bug’s Life
3. “God bestowed upon nature a beautiful bounty of butterflies only to complete his picture-perfect scape.” – Unknown
4. “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
5. “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
6. “Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine.” – Jeffrey Glassberg
7. “When the spirit of nature touches us, our hearts turn into a butterfly.” – Mehmet Murat İldan
8. “For our people, butterflies are a symbol of hope. It’s said that if you capture one in your hands and whisper your dreams to it, it will carry them up to the heavens so that the wish can be granted.” – Sherrilyn Kenyon
9. “Butterflies are God’s confetti, thrown upon the Earth in celebration of His love.” – K. D’Angelo
10. “Minutes passed by. A little blue butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked at it and it fluttered to my ear. A big yellow butterfly gently floated over and landed on my paw. Soon a whole swarm of them floated up and down around me, like a swirl of multicolored petals. It happened in my backyard, too, if the magic was strong enough. Butterflies were small and light, and very magic sensitive. For some reason I made them feel safe and they gravitate to me like iron shavings to a magnet. They ruined my ferocious badass image, but you’d have to be a complete beast to swat butterflies.” – Ilona Andrews
11. “And whether this happiness lasted a hundred seconds or ten minutes, it was so far removed from time that it resembled every other genuine happiness as completely as one fluttering blue lycaenid butterfly resembles another.” – Herman Hesse
12. “The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.” – Primo Lev
13. “I’d be a butterfly; living a rover, dying when fair things are fading away.” – Thomas Haynes Bayly
14. “The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.” – Gary Zukav
15. “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
16. ”And when I was angry, when I was younger, I was in a cocoon. Now I’m a beautiful, black butterfly.” – Tracy Morgan
17. “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
18. ”I embrace emerging experience. I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly.” – William Stafford
19. “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.” – Unknown
20. “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
21. “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
22. “Nature’s message was always there and for us to see. It was written on the wings of butterflies.” – Kjell B. Sandved
23. “Do ye not comprehend that we are worms, Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly That flieth unto judgment without screen?” – Dante Alighieri
24. “I think that positivity, real positivity, is like the butterflies. The whole essence of the butterfly: caterpillar, cocoon, winged creature. When I look at a butterfly, I not only see a winged beauty, but I also see a strong beauty.” – C. JoyBell C.
25. “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
26. “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
27. “The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower a tethered butterfly.” – Ponce Denis Ecouchard Lebrun
28. “She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies that just because their lives were short didn’t mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.” – Lisa Genova
29. “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
30. “They say, ‘Only in dreams men are truly free.’ What does a butterfly dream about? It’s already free.” – Scholasticus K
Inspirational Butterfly Quotes
1. “You’ve got to be a caterpillar before you are a butterfly. Problem is, most people aren’t willing to be a caterpillar.” – Unknown
2. “When 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
3. “A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” – Mandy Hale
4. “A butterfly always reminds that there is always beauty at the end of all the pain.” – Unknown
5. ”I’ve always loved butterflies, because they remind us that it’s never too late to transform ourselves.” – Drew Barrymore
6. “Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
7. “Awaken to the universe’s simple gift of the butterfly. Watch with fascination and joy as a jeweled treasure glides by and gently touches your soul.” – K. D’Angelo
8. “The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach
9. “The butterfly said to the sun, ‘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
10. “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
11. “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
12. “What would a butterfly quote, on looking in the mirror? It would say, ‘The adventure was worth it!’” – Manali Oak
13. “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
14. ”There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – Richard Buckminster Fuller
15. “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
16. “When you find yourself cocooned in isolation and you cannot find your way out of darkness… Remember, this is similar to the place where caterpillars go to grow their wings.” – Necole Stephens
17. “Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.” – Drew Barrymore
18. “For a new year to bring you something new, make a move, like a butterfly tearing its cocoon! Make a move!” – Mehmet Murat İldan
19. “Why is a caterpillar wrapped in silk while it changes into a butterfly? So the other caterpillars can’t hear the screams. Change hurts.” – Rory Miller
20. “A caterpillar, after its deep slumber, ‘wakes up to reality’ to realize, that truth is not always bitter after all!” – Manali Oak
21. “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
22. “Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness and still become something beautiful.” – Beau Taplin
23. “A butterfly says, ‘The caterpillar-me is history, my metamorphosis, a mystery, and today… today is a present, my struggle gifted me.’” – Manali Oak
24. “You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder.” – Unknown
25. “The butterfly does not look back upon its caterpillar self, either fondly or wistfully; it simply flies on.” – Guillermo del Toro
26. “The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.” – Tom Robbins
27. “Butterflies are beautiful, but the process of emerging from the chrysalis and spreading your wings can hurt like f***ing hell. But still, you will survive the transformation (over and over again) and you will fly. Remember this when it hurts the most. This is the metamorphosis, the going down to liquid, and the rising again. It’s no joke – but damn, it’s one hell of a journey.” – Jeanette LeBlanc
28. “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
29. “Just when the caterpillar thought ‘I am incapable of moving,’ it became a butterfly.” – Annette Thomas
30. “Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.” – Pat Barker
31. “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
32. “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
33. “When, within our souls and psyches, we are made aware of a safe but insistent drumbeat, repeated like butterfly wings in motion, we sense the message that our inner self has begun its search for freedom.” – Mary Meeker
34. “Nerves and butterflies are fine – they’re a physical sign that you’re mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that’s the trick.” – Steve Bul
35. “Be like a butterfly and a flower – beautiful and sought after, yet unassuming and gentle.” – Jarod Kintz
36. “Once you let people know anything about what you think, that’s it, you’re dead. Then they’ll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.” – Helen Oyeyemi
37. “When it comes to religion today, we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons. Somehow we’re going to have to relearn that the deep things of God don’t come suddenly.” – Sue Monk Kidd
38. “A butterfly symbolizes acceptance of each new phase in life. To keep faith as everything around you changed.” – Lisa Kleypas
39. “Adding wings to caterpillars does not create butterflies, it creates awkward and dysfunctional caterpillars. Butterflies are created through transformation.” – Stephanie Marshall
40. “Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.” – Andre Gide
41. “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
42. “The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can affect climate changes on the other side of the planet.” – Paul Ehrlich
43. “To catch the butterflies and the rainbows of your dream, walk alone, keep faith in yourself, focus your energy and start the adventure.” – Amit Ray
44. “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
45. “Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.” – Bradley Millar
46. “Although the butterfly and the caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same.” – Kendrick Lamar
47. “I wish I could see butterflies burst from cocoons without tempering my amazement. Knowing all beauty eventually dies.” – Justin Wetch
48. “‘Just living isn’t enough,’ said the butterfly, ‘one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.’” – Hans Christian Anderson
49. “A butterfly is a caterpillar who never gave up on his dream to fly.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
50. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” – Maya Angelou
51. “‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. Orange Butterfly ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’” – Trina Paulus
52. “A caterpillar must endure a season of isolation before it turns into a butterfly. Embrace the time you have alone, it will only make you stronger.” – Steven Aitchison
53. “Open your heart and mind like the wings of a butterfly. See then how high you CAN fly.” – Zeenat Aman
Short Butterfly Quotes
1. ”I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.” – Charles Dickens
2. “Butterflies are self-propelled flowers.” – R. H. Heinlein
3. “Butterflies are more like flowers; their only advantage is that they can touch the sky.” – Unknown
4. “Live life like a butterfly, take a rest, but never forget how to fly.” – Unknown
5. “The thing about butterflies, Mr. Crow, is that they need to be admired from afar.” – A. Zavarelli
6. “Today, when you see a butterfly, let it remind you of new life.” – Helen Steiner Rice
7. “Butterflies are nature’s angels. They remind us what a gift it is to be alive.” – Robyn Nola
8. “We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis.” – LeeAnn Taylor
9. “Take time to be a butterfly.” – Gillian Duce
10. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” – Muhammad Ali
11. “As with the butterfly, adversity is necessary to build character in people.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
12. “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – Rabindranath Tagore
13. “And what’s a butterfly? At best, He’s but a caterpillar, at rest.” – John Grey
14. ”You’ve got to be like a butterfly and have a metamorphosis.” – Mike Markkula
15. “When I ran, I felt like a butterfly that was free.” – Wilma Rudolph
16. “Butterflies… flowers that fly and all but sing.” – Robert Frost
17. “A caterpillar is a butterfly in disguise!” – Unknown
18. “And the case of butterflies so rich it looks as if all summer settled there and died.” – Philip Larkin
19. “Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring.” – Unknown
20. “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” – Carl Sagan
21. “Everybody knows what a caterpillar is, and it doesn’t look anything like a butterfly.” – Lynn Margulis
22. “To know God, watch a butterfly return to the same tree – after a year and a thousand miles.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie
23. “Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time.” – Deborah Chaskin
24. ”If nothing ever changed, there would be no such things as butterflies.” – Wendy Mass
25. “Failure is like a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly.” – Peta Kelly
26. “Caterpillar sheds its skin to find a butterfly within.” – Donovan
27. “The uglier the caterpillar the lovelier the butterfly.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
28. “The term ‘breakout’ always makes me think of an inmate or some butterfly emerging out of a cocoon.” – Tessa Thompson
Caterpillar To Butterfly Quotes
1. “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.” – Patch Adams
2. ”Metamorphosis has always been the greatest symbol of change for poets and artists. Imagine that you could be a caterpillar one moment and a butterfly the next.” – Louie Schwartzberg
3. “In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with humans it is the other way around: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.” – Anton Chekhov
4. “God changes caterpillars into butterflies. Sand into pearls and coal into diamonds. Using time and pressure. He’s working on you too.” – Unknown
5. “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
6. “Fighting has taught me that the caterpillar takes a while to turn into a majestic butterfly.” – Jesse Taylor
7. “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
8. “As the caterpillar undergoes transformation within the cocoon before emerging as a butterfly; likewise, life experiences shape character.” – Lorna Jackie Wilson, Babygirl
9. “When a caterpillar spins its cocoon, it goes through a transformative process and then emerges as a butterfly. Similarly, when we go through a practice of meditation and prayer, we loosen our egoic grip on a sense of self that is separate from the Whole and become vehicles of the emergent evolutionary paradigm of love, peace , compassion, wisdom, harmony and oneness that seeks expression on the planet.” – Michael Beckwith
Butterfly Quotes About Love
1. “It was a completely new feeling for me – like someone had just released a million, tiny butterflies loose in my stomach, and they were feverishly flying up into my head and making me lose my mind.” – Laura Miller
2. ”Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing.” – Dolly Parton
3. “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
4. ”To all the broken-hearted and anyone feeling sad, may your hearts heal and may you feel happy in your lives. Flutter as the butterflies do.” – Krystal
5. “Love is like a butterfly, beautiful and delicate… If you truly care for it, you’ll do whatever you can to make it happy, even if that means letting it go.” – Scott Pemberton
6. “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 you are now.” – Cecelia Ahern
7. “You put butterflies back into my soul and painted their wings with passion and poetry.” – Melody Lee
8. “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
9. “Love is like a butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.” – Unknown
10. “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
11. “I love that feeling of being in love, the effect of having butterflies when you wake up in the morning. That is special.” – Jennifer Aniston
12. “The beginning of love enters with butterflies in the stomach to pain in the heart and leave you with scars and endless questions in you!” – Angel
13. “Love is basically like leeches. They suck until they can’t get enough of you. Until you find a caterpillar that will turn into the butterfly that you have wished for all of your life. Then they just spread their wings and fly away.” – Unknown
14. “Love is like a butterfly, it settles upon you when you least expect it.” – Unknown
15. “You are my ground and you are my rainbow. You are my butterfly and you are my ecstasy. You are the start of my journeys and always my destination. You are my home – the place to which I always return.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Happy Birthday Butterfly Quotes
1. “Today is your day to dance lightly with life, sing wild songs of adventure, invite rainbows and butterflies out to play, soar your spirit, and unfurl your joy.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie
2. “May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun and find your shoulder to light on, to bring you luck, happiness and riches, today, tomorrow and beyond.” – Irish Blessing
3. “Butterflies bright and flowers too are on this card especially for you. May your day be extra special, may it hold many joys for you and may the year ahead bring all things bright and new!” – Unknown
4. “These pretty little butterflies are fluttering by your way, to wish you a Happy Birthday on this special day. May your day be filled with sunshine and laughter all day through. You deserve the very best in life to come to you!” – Unknown
5. “Sending you wishes on butterfly wings… For a wonderful day, full of beautiful things.” – Unknown
6. “I wish you a rainbows and butterflies kind of day.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Funny Butterfly Quotes
1. “Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average life span is a mere five to fourteen days.” – Ellen DeGeneres
2. “The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” – George Carlin
3. “My thoughts are like butterflies. They are beautiful, but they fly away.” – Unknown
4. “After 12 years, the old butterflies came back. Well, I guess at my age you call them moths.” – Franco Harris
5. Every time I see you I get butterflies in my stomach, but it’s all right. The acid kills them almost instantly.” – Unknown
6. “Don’t need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo…” – Hailee Steinfeld
7. “When butterflies fall in love, do they have humans inside their stomach?” – Unknown
8. “It’s very tough for me to focus. I’m like: ‘Look, something shiny! No, focus. Oh, there goes a butterfly!’” – Gabby Douglas
9. “Women, don’t get a tattoo. That butterfly looks great on your breast when you’re twenty or thirty, but when you get to seventy, it stretches into a condor.” – Billy Elmer
Many people would agree that change is the only constant in life. Well, butterflies are a marvelous symbol of change.
They teach us that there will definitely be many changes that life will hit us with, but that no matter what, we have to keep moving forward to the promise of something better.
These beautiful butterfly quotes will definitely motivate you to embrace all of your transformations and metamorphoses, because there is beauty in those changes.
The life of a butterfly is difficult and unpredictable, just as ours is, but we need to understand the power of patience and the value of growth.
That’s the only way we’ll be able to live life as those beautiful butterflies that flutter by. That’s the only way we’ll be able to enjoy our lives the way we should: to the fullest.