100 Inspirational Butterfly Quotes About Transformation and Love

Butterflies are a delicate reminder of the beauty of nature. Who doesn’t enjoy witnessing one of these creatures in flight and how can we not appreciate the transformation they undergo before becoming these winged beauties.

The process in which the caterpillar becomes a butterfly is called metamorphosis and it sometimes lasts up to 30 days. While the magic happens, the caterpillar stays in a cocoon.

The butterfly’s transformation is inspiring in so many ways. It teaches us that change, even though it might be a long and hard process, can lead to amazing results. It also teaches us about the importance of letting go of the old in order to embrace the new, and it helps us understand the value of patience, perseverance and growth.

Some butterfly species live for only a few days and no adult butterfly can live more than a year. However, regardless of their life span, all butterflies enjoy the moments they have on earth just the same.

Culturally, butterflies are a popular theme in the visual and literary arts.

Here are 100 butterfly quotes that carry powerful messages:

Short butterfly quotes

Butterflies make people smile and appreciate nature more. Are you a butterfly lover just like us? If yes, we have handpicked a list of short butterfly quotes for you. These quotes make perfect captions for your social media posts.  Read through them, pick your favorite one and don’t hesitate to share it with your friends.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.

RICHARD BUCKMINSTER FULLER

A great beginning is sometimes at the point of what you thought would be the end of everything.

DODINSKY

I’ve always loved butterflies, because they remind us that it’s never too late to transform ourselves.

DREW BARRYMORE

If nothing ever changed, there would be no such things as butterflies.

WENDY MASS

And when I was angry, when I was younger, I was in a cocoon. Now I’m a beautiful, black butterfly.

TRACY MORGAN

Butterflies are God’s confetti, thrown upon the Earth in celebration of His love. 

K. D’ANGELO

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. 

CHARLES DICKENS (more Charles Dickens quotes)

And when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful. 

RUSKIN BOND

If there is one creature that represents my essence, it’s butterflies. 

PATRICIA VELASQUEZ

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

HELEN KELLER (more Helen Keller quotes)

I’d be a butterfly; living a rover, Dying when fair things are fading away. 

THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY

Butterflies are self-propelled flowers. 

R.H. HEINLEIN

Go on, hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly. There’s no better way to fly. 

PATRICK MONAHAN

Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing. 

DOLLY PARTON (more Dolly Parton quotes)

I sting like a butterfly and punch like a flea. 

SI ROBERTSON

If you want to fly, you have to flap your own wings! 

CLAIRE WILLIAMS

You’ve got to be like a butterfly and have a metamorphosis. 

MIKE MARKKULA

Open your heart and mind like the wings of a butterfly. See then how high you CAN fly. 

ZEENAT AMAN

Read like a butterfly, write like a bee. 

PHILIP PULLMAN

Fighting has taught me that the caterpillar takes a while to turn into a majestic butterfly. 

JESSE TAYLOR

Although the butterfly and the caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same. 

KENDRICK LAMAR

For a new year to bring you something new, make a move, like a butterfly tearing its cocoon! Make a move! 

MEHMET MURAT ILDAN

Nature’s message was always there and for us to see. It was written on the wings of butterflies. 

KJELL B. SANDVED

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

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

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

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness and still become something beautiful. 

UNKNOWN

Just when the caterpillar thought I am incapable of moving, it became a butterfly. 

ANNETTE THOMAS

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

Don’t be afraid. Change is such a beautiful thing, said the Butterfly. 

SABRINA NEWBY

Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time. 

DEBORAH CHASKIN

Flowers and butterflies drift in color, illuminating spring. 

UNKNOWN

What’s a butterfly garden without butterflies?  

ROY ROGERS

Be like a butterfly and a flower—beautiful and sought after, yet unassuming and gentle. 

JAROD KINTZ

Soar up high with the beauty and grace of a butterfly. 

UNKNOWN

The butterfly does not look back upon its caterpillar self, either fondly or wistfully; it simply flies on. 

GUILLERMO DEL TORO

The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower a tethered butterfly. 

PONCE DENIS ECOUCHARD LEBRU

The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can effect climate changes on the other side of the planet. 

PAUL ERLICH

As with the butterfly, adversity is necessary to build character in people. 

JOSEPH B. WIRTHLIN

Butterflies… flowers that fly and all but sing. 

ROBERT FROST

When I ran, I felt like a butterfly that was free. 

WILMA RUDOLPH

Beautiful and graceful, butterflies lift our spirits with their loveliness and lyric flight. 

GLORIA B. SCHLAEPFER

Failure is like a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly. 

PETA KELLY

Butterflies love to be out in the sunshine, just like people. You can look for them on warm, bright sunny days. 

JOHN WOODWARD

The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity. 

GEORGE CARLIN

Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average life span is a mere five to fourteen days. 

ELLEN DEGENERES

We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis. 

LEEANN TAYLOR

You can only chase a butterfly for so long. 

JANE YOLEN

Among the varied species of insects, butterflies are the most poetic. 

ANA GERHARD

Butterflies are the most beautiful creatures ever. They should call them beautiflies, don’t you think? 

RICHELLE E. GOODRICH

Catching butterflies won’t give you a taste of freedom but the knowledge that weights are not carried in wings. 

GOITSEMANG MVULA

Butterfly quotes for her

Looking for butterfly quotes to share with your soulmate? Look no further! Below we’ve gathered a list of butterfly quotes for her that you can choose from. We’re sure that your lady will appreciate a text message where you admit that you have butterflies in your stomach whenever you meet. Or maybe you want to compare your girlfriend/wife with these beautiful creatures – we’ve got you covered here as well!

‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’ 

TRINA PAULUS

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 (more Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes)

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

Love is like a butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.

UNKNOWN

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 (more John Keats quotes)

Even though you flew away. In my soul, you will forever stay.

UNKNOWN

Love is a lot like a butterfly. It undergoes metamorphosis to achieve its most exquisite self.

UNKNOWN

Butterflies are nature’s angels. You are my angel.

UNKNOWN

You are like a butterfly. Pretty to look at and hard to catch.

UNKNOWN

You put butterflies back into my soul and painted their wings with passion and poetry.

MELODY LEE

You logged in my heart to live as a butterfly. To transform, to fly, to be free.

UNKNOWN

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

MUHAMMAD ALI

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

Love takes my insides and twists and turns them until they’re inside out, upside down, knotted in knots, and full of butterflies. And you know what? I love it!

ANTHONY T. HINCKS

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

Inspirational butterfly quotes

The cocoon represents the caterpillar’s comfort zone, but it has to emerge from this state, otherwise it wouldn’t transform into a beautiful butterfly. Similarly, at some point you will also have to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself if you want to become the best version of yourself.

The butterfly is a symbol for transition, change and growth. In that respect, bellow you’ll find our list of inspirational butterfly quotes. Enjoy!

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 the butterfly.

RICHARD BACH

Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.

DREW BARRYMORE

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

Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and – as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis – emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness.

ANNIE BESANT

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. 

ELIZABETH LESSER

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

Adding wings to caterpillars does not create butterflies, it creates awkward and dysfunctional caterpillars. Butterflies are created through transformation.

STEPHANIE MARSHALL

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

MAYA ANGELOU

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

A caterpillar, after its deep slumber, ‘wakes up to reality’ to realize, that truth is not always bitter after all!

MANALI OAK

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

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

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

A butterfly symbolized acceptance of each new phase in life. To keep faith as everything around you changed. 

LISA KLEYPAS

When, within our souls and psyches we are made aware of a safe but insistent drum beat, repeated like butterfly wings in motion, we sense the message… that our inner self has begun its search for freedom. 

MARY MEEKER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butterflies used to reproduce on the native plants that grew in our yards before the plants were bulldozed and replaced with lawn. To have butterflies in our future, we need to replace those lost host plants, no if’s, and’s or but’s. If we do not, butterfly populations will continue to decline with every new house that is built. 

DOUGLAS TALLAMY

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

There’s a metaphor Vincent Eades likes to use: 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

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

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

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. 

UNKNOWN

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

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

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

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 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

Butterflies, they are like dream flowers, childhood dreams, which have broken loose from their stalks and escaped into the sunshine. 

UNKNOWN