I cannot separate the aesthetic pleasure of seeing a butterfly and the scientific pleasure of knowing what it is.

Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity.

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation

You must want to be a butterfly so badly, you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

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

The people thrown into other cultures go through something of the anguish of the butterfly, whose body must disintegrate and reform more than once in its life cycle. In her novel “Regeneration,” Pat Barker writes of a doctor who “knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. 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 of the human soul, for those whose cat of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.” But the butterfly is so fit an emblem of the human soul that its name in Greek is “psyche,” the word for soul. We have not much language to appreciate this phase of decay, this withdrawal, this era of ending that must precede beginning. Nor of the violence of the metamorphosis, which is often spoken of as though it were as graceful as a flower blooming.

Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.

Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.

Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.

Experience life in all possible ways — good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light,
summer-winter. Experience all the dualities.
Don't be afraid of experience, because
the more experience you have, the more
mature you become.

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?

He who hears butterflies laugh knows what clouds taste of
He will discover the night in the moonlight, unhindered by fear.
He will become the plant, if he wishes, the animal, the fool, the sage
He will travel the universe within one hour.
He knows that he knows nothing, like all the others, too.
Only he knows, what he and all the others will have to learn
He who feels strange shores within himself and dares to rise
will slowly, unhindered by fear, discover himself
He looks up to his own summits
And calmly takes up the fight with his own underworld
He who’s at peace with himself will also die in peace
and will be more alive in death than all his heirs.