Quotations about Unicorns
The unicorn is one of the most beautiful of the "shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses", but he did not attain his beauty all at once... Only in recent years has the legend of the unicorn been turned over to avowed and professional dreamers... ~Odell Shepard, "Shaping Fantasies," The Lore of the Unicorn, 1930 [Quoted portion is the Fourth Spirit in Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound:
"On a poet's lips I slept,
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept.
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the aërial kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses."
Let none be offended or surprised at this piping and dancing. Eccentricity belongs to genius; the most ardent soul requires relaxation from severe studies; and our author has a mind both mighty and playful, skipping like the unicorn. ~Review of Mr. William Huntington's Literary and Religious Curiosity, c.1802
A living drollery: now I will believe
That there are unicorns...
~William Shakespeare, Tempest, c. 1611
We may never know precisely when or where or how the legend of the unicorn began. It pervades recorded time and may be dimly visible even in the clouds that hover just above history's sunrise. The mystery of its origin... is one of the legend's most evident charms... We can best take up the tale of the unicorn at the point where it first emerges into the literature of the western world, early in the fourth century before Christ. ~Odell Shepard, "The Gorgeous East," The Lore of the Unicorn, 1930
Our Unicorn sings ravishing melodies for those who possess the inner ear of mystics and poets. ~James Huneker, Unicorns, 1906–1917 [The book is a collection of essays about musicians, writers, artists, literature, &c.
...the unicorn is noble,
He knows his gentle birth,
He knows that God has chosen him
Above all beasts of earth.
~Volkslied (German folk song)
When the unicorn arrived, things were different from what had been expected. He was such a noble animal, to begin with, that he carried a beauty with him: it held all spellbound who were within sight. The unicorn was white, with hoofs of silver and graceful horn of pearl. He stepped daintily over the heather, scarcely seeming to press it with his airy trot, and the wind made waves in his long mane, which had been freshly combed. The glorious thing about him was his eyes. There was a faint bluish furrow down each side of his nose, and this led up to the eye-sockets, and surrounded them in a pensive shade. The eyes, circled by this sad and beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, lonely, gentle and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotion except love. ~T. H. White (1906–1964), "The Unicorn," 1939
The music beat on among youthful leaves, into the darkness, beneath the gold and mute cacophony of stars... Stars were golden unicorns neighing unheard through blue meadows spurning them with hooves sharp and scintillant as ice. ~William Faulkner, Soldiers' Pay, 1926
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I never saw one alive before!”
“Well, now that we have seen each other," said the Unicorn, “if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
~Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), “The Lion and the Unicorn,” Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, 1871
Only in recent years has the legend of the unicorn been turned over to avowed and professional dreamers; throughout the greater part of its history it has been shaped chiefly by practical men — hunters, physicians, explorers, and merchant-adventurers — who regarded mere poetry with the healthy contempt shown by Shakespeare's Theseus. Yet the literary allusions to the animal are of course very numerous. ~Odell Shepard, "Shaping Fantasies," The Lore of the Unicorn, 1930
There was something essentially aristocratic about him. His kinship to the horse,... the headlong enthusiasm of his devotion to beautiful women. He was fierce and proud and dangerous to his foes, as a knight should be, and he was also gentle; he had the dignity of solitude; he was beautiful and strong; most significant of all, he was a protector and champion of other beasts against the wiles of their enemies. In all the range of animal lore there is no other story conceived so completely in the aristocratic spirit as that of the unicorn stepping down to the poisoned water while the other beasts wait patiently for his coming, and making it safe for them by dipping his magic horn. Here was a perfect emblem of the ideal that... exceptional power and privilege were balanced and justified by exceptional responsibility. ~Odell Shepard, "Shaping Fantasies," The Lore of the Unicorn, 1930
He had lost his body... It was as though vision were a bodiless Eye suspended in dark-blue space, an Eye without Thought, regarding without surprise an antic world where wanton stars galloped neighing like unicorns in blue meadows. ~William Faulkner, Soldiers' Pay, 1926
The best use for a unicorn's horn is to adorn a unicorn. ~Femeref adage, Benevolent Unicorn card, Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield, Wizards of the Coast
The legs, so delicately shaped, balanced a
body wrought of finest ivory. And as
he moved, his coat shone like reflected moonlight.
High on his forehead rose the magic horn, the sign
of his uniqueness: a tower held upright
by his alert, yet gentle, timid gait.
~Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), "The Unicorn," translated from German by Albert Ernest Flemming, 1983
See! the gay Unicorn the Wood adorn,
Fair sign of Plenty with his Iv'ry Horn!
~John Whaley (1710–1745), "A Journey to Houghton. A Poem."
Think of the Unicorn, that curious symbol of retirement from the world... ~Edward Carpenter, "Tradition, Convention, and the Gods," c.1898
I think he kept a unicorn
in his garden, or even himself was
partly a unicorn and reverted to the form at certain
seasons, or under the influence of the moon or
the scent of unidentified herbs,
or the echo of hoofbeats among the constellations
inaudible to most ears.
~Peggy Pond Church, "Elegy," c.1957
She who calls for unicorns
A fitting bride shall be
For one who guides a soaring ship
Upon a cloud-tossed sea.
For no one but a poet true
Would ever dream to choose
A unicorn so fleet and small
With brightly polished shoes...
And when the day is sort o' brown
And bird-men climb the skies,
O, may she ride about the town
A poem in disguise.
~Alfaretta Lansing, "Reply for Anne Spencer Morrow," in American Poetry Magazine, 1929
The brilliance of the stars increased. Charles Wallace continued to gaze upward. He focused on one star which throbbed with peculiar intensity. A beam of light as strong as a ladder but clear as water flowed between the star and Charles Wallace, and it was impossible to tell whether the light came from the piercing silver-blue of the star or the light blue eyes of the boy. The beam became stronger and firmer and then all the light resolved itself in a flash of radiance beside the boy. Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light. It was a creature of utter and absolute perfection. ~Madeleine L'Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, 1978
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers:
But, when I tell him, he hates flatterers,
He says, he does; being then most flatter'd.
~William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, c. 1599
She saw that his color was changing as he grew. His coat was turning to the creamy whiteness of May blossoms, and his mane and tail glimmered as pale as starlight. ~Margaret Greaves, "A Net to Catch the Wind," 1979
Unicorns have always occupied a peculiar position in the opinion of the people as animals of good omen. There is an old legend, that a unicorn made its appearance at the birth of Confucius. The unicorn has been seen as a symbol of love for mankind. Unicorns have from a very early age been entrusted with the guardianship of tombs from unseen evil influences and the neutralisation of misfortune.
In the midnight forest the dark oak trees are still under the stars. The pale wildflowers in the clearing have furled their petals for the night. Suddenly he appears, a milk-white creature with the proud form of a horse. You may not notice his cloven hoofs or curling beard, but you see the curved neck, the silver mane, the graceful tail. Then he moves his head, and the moonlight runs like sea water along the pearly spiral of his horn. There is no sound, but at the next heart-beat the clearing is once again empty of all but the night. ~Georgess McHargue (1941–2011), The Beasts of Never: A History Natural &
The Unicorn's a first-rate sort.
He helps the Lion to support
The royal arms of England's King
And keep the Throne from tottering...
~Oliver Herford, "The Unicorn," The Mythological Zoo, 1912
The unicorn is commonly, though not always, thought of as white in body; it is an emblem of chastity; it is very swift; according to the best authorities it cannot be taken alive. The animal is most readily associated with the new or crescent moon, which might indeed seem to dwellers by the sea to be leading the stars down to the water and to dip its own horn therein before they descend...
According to astrological belief and also that of magic and early medicine, the moon's phases exercise controlling influence upon all "humors", including not only the waters of the earth but the juices of plants and the blood of animals and of man... Alkazuwin asserts that the vigor of all animals grows with the waxing moon, that the milk of kine and the horns of beasts and even the whites of eggs increase with it... ~Odell Shepard, "Conjectures," The Lore of the Unicorn, 1930
Everything today has been
Heavy and brown.
Bring me a Unicorn
To ride about town.
Bring me a unicorn
As little and white
As the new moon
On its first night...
And I will kneel each morning
To polish his bright hoofs
That they may gleam each moonlight
We ride over roofs.
~Anne Spencer Morrow, "Unicorn," 1927
I believe that the Unicorn may come to represent... the realm of art... Bereft of a complete fable, the Unicorn has earned a place in our imagination as an arcanum, an emblem of what we do not know. ~Roger Shattuck (1923–2005), "The Sphinx and the Unicorn," Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, 1986
The unicorn and I are one:
He also pauses in amaze
Before some maiden's magic gaze,
And, while he wonders, is undone.
On some dear breast he slumbers deep,
And Treason slays him in that sleep.
Just so have ended my life's days;
So Love and my Lady lay me low.
My heart will not survive this blow.
~Thibaut IV, Count of Champagne (1201–1253)
If the horne have this situation, and be so forwardly affixed, as is described, it will not be easily conceived, how it can feed from the ground... ~Thomas Browne (1605–1682)
Two lovely dames, whose air and habit show'd
That not to lineage mean their birth they ow'd;
Nor seem'd brought up in humble cottage state,
But bred in rich apartments of the great;
Each on a beauteous unicorn was plac'd,
Whose snowy hue the ermin's white defac'd.
~Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533), Orlando Furioso, translated from Italian by John Hoole, 1783
As it is, I am so well off that everybody pretends I am much more respectable than I really am. The truth is there is no such thing as a great man or a great woman. People believe in them just as they used to believe in unicorns and dragons. The greatest man or woman is 99
Because it never found a mate,
Men called
The unicorn abnormal.
~Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961), diary, 1959, translated from the Swedish by Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden, Markings, 1964
...the unicorn stands alone, still as frost. It keeps watch down the corridors of time. The past and the future meet in the presence of the unicorn: the darkness and light become one. Patient as a candle flame, inviolate, here is our guardian, keeper of the silent unknown. ~Josephine Bradley, In Pursuit of the Unicorn, 1980
Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes, these muzzles, these unicorns, these torches, these towers, these martlets, these seedlings of stars and these fields of blue! ~Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. ~Sage advice
No one can vouch for the origins of the medieval proverb, "No true virgin plays leapfrog with a unicorn in the forest on a spring night." ~Muriel Segal, Virgins Reluctant, Dubious & Avowed, 1977