Top 1200 Black Swan Quotes & Sayings

Explore popular Black Swan quotes.
Last updated on April 21, 2025.
In my books, there is no 'ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan' syndrome because if you look at the Hansel and Gretel syndrome, it was a mistake. It wasn't a duckling, it was a cygnet, and that's why it turned into a swan. The duckling should with any luck turn into a nice clucking duck and get on with its life. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!
The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow! — © William Wordsworth
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow!
No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.
Shiva... is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan; The prey she will take last is the wild white swan of the beauty of things. Then she will be alone, pure destruction, achieved and supreme, Empty darkness under the death-tent wings. She will build a nest of the swan's bones and hatch a new brood, Hang new heavens with new birds, all be renewed.
'Swan Lake' can be a nightmare. To make a 'Swan Lake' that is worth it, every single movement and breath has to be perfect. When you have an idea of 'Swan Lake' that is as high as that, it's almost impossible.
I think that all services will have downtime. No matter how much you prepare, have redundant systems, or audit, there will periodically be a black swan event that is completely unlike whatever you've experienced before. It even happens to Google!
Coal-black is better than another hue In that it scorns to bear another hue; For all the water in the ocean Can never turn the swan's black legs to white, Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
I launched Ballet Beautiful not long after finishing at Columbia and met Natalie Portman shortly after. We began training and preparing her for her role in 'Black Swan.' From there, I continued to build and expand the method itself along with the business, always looking for ways to share the workout with others around the world.
Black Realism or cosmopolitan black politician is a code word to say this is a black person that is not tied to a civil rights/black power traditional black politics.
There are regulators at the SEC and elsewhere who are really excited about the potential of the blockchain. They understand you can build a robust financial system - it would solve all your black swan problems. All kinds of mischief and games that are played in the current system become impossible in this system.
A rare bird upon the earth and very much like a black swan.
Slashing its way to the finish line, Black Swan is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.
The locomotives are black. The coal is black. The tracks are black. The night is black. So what am I going to do with color?
I used to joke for years that I was a black man. I adopted the black culture, the black race. I married a black woman, and I had black kids. I always considered myself a 'brother.'
With 'Black Swan,' the ballerina saga flips its tiara and goes on a hallucinatory bender, a scary acid trip where transfiguration and disfiguration meet.
What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.
Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.
I've gotten a firsthand view at the destruction that black men and black women not being able to stay and build healthy relationships has had on the black family and black children.
When I saw the movie 'Black Swan,' I liked the darker aspect of it, the more dramatics, and that's what I like to do for my programs. — © Kaetlyn Osmond
When I saw the movie 'Black Swan,' I liked the darker aspect of it, the more dramatics, and that's what I like to do for my programs.
Last year when "Black Swan," "True Grit" and "King's Speech" all grossed over $100 million, it gave studios and independent financiers the confidence to make daring movies. You know, and not do the same old you-know-what.
Adults who loved and knew me, on many occasions sat me down and told me that I was black. As you could imagine, this had a profound impact on me and soon became my truth. Every friend I had was black; my girlfriends were black. I was seen as black, treated as black, and endured constant overt racism as a young black teenager.
A rare bird on this earth, like nothing so much as a black swan.
Blood is the leitmotif of 'Black Swan.'
I have this really morbid, awesome love for the movie 'Black Swan.'
Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked. 'In the fortresses,' the swan replied. 'And the poets?' 'Lost in dreams of other worlds.' 'And the craftsmen?' 'Forging machines to challenge the darkness.' 'And the Wise, who made the world?' The swan lowered its black neck sadly. 'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.
I've done a lot of comedy recently, so I would really like to explore something else. I am hankering after a really meaty, dramatic role... like Natalie Portman's part in Black Swan.'
'Don't Look Back' is my first YA contemporary mystery/thriller. It's been described as 'Black Swan' meets 'Pretty Little Liars'.
I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works.
Iron and coal dominated everywhere, from grey to black: the black boots, the black stove-pipe hat, the black coach or carriage, the black iron frame of the hearth, the black cooking pots and pans and stoves. Was it a mourning? Was it protective coloration? Was it mere depression of the senses? No matter what the original color of the paleotechnic milieu might be it was soon reduced by reason of the soot and cinders that accompanied its activities, to its characteristic tones, grey, dirty-brown, black.
Being invited to score for 'Black Swan' was a real honour. To have my work form part of such an amazing film is something I am very proud of.
What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another tale of a ballerina driven mad and suicidal.
'Black Swan' was absolutely unbelievable. I had always dreamed of working with Darren Aronofsky, and Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel. The entire cast was really a dream cast, and it was amazing to work with these powerhouse women that I've just admired for so many years.
I have had so many great moments, but I would have to say that dancing the Swan in 'Swan Lake' was such a unique and passionate experience for me. It was such bloody hard work, even at that very early age, that I would not want to try to replicate it again now.
If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.
I'm admitting that I don't know that to be true, but it does sound pretty good. So a big part of my childhood was affecting black culture and black accents and black music and anything black I was into.
The very first film I ever saw was a pirate movie called 'The Black Swan' with Tyrone Power. And I thought that was great stuff. Of course, in those days, Technicolor was really Technicolor; there was no such thing as desaturation. Everybody looked super suntanned.
I am trained, and I did do 'The Nutcracker' in its right form, but at the time, they told me I was black and I'd never be in 'Swan Lake.' I went through all those prejudices in the ballet community, and I still emerged wonderfully trained and found my way to Alvin Ailey where there were familiar faces.
So the world is much more correlated than we give credit to. And so we see more of what Nassim Taleb calls "black swan events" - rare events happen more often than they should because the world is more correlated.
Misty Copeland is making history. During American Ballet Theatre's current season at the Metropolitan Opera House, Copeland will alight on that storied Lincoln Center stage, making her New York debut as the Swan Queen in the iconic masterpiece Swan Lake - a crowning achievement for any dancer, regardless of the color of her skin.
I felt like it was a courageous show [Black-ish] from the beginning. We are a black family - we're not a family that happens to be black. But the show is not even about us being black. The show is about us being a family. That is groundbreaking - on TV, the black characters either happen to be black or they're the "black character," where everything they say is about being black. I think that's the genius.
I would say I'm black because my parents said I'm black. I'm black because my mother's black. I'm black because I grew up in a family of all black people. I knew I was black because I grew up in an all-white neighborhood. And my parents, as part of their protective mechanisms that they were going to give to us, made it very clear what we were.
People don't realize it hurts my feelings when someone looks at my hair or my eyes, and says, 'But you're not actually black. You're black, but you're not black black, because your eyes are green.' I'm like, 'What? No, no, I'm definitely black.' Even some of my closest friends have said that. It's been a bit touchy for me.
On the ice, I feel like I can become a different person, and the darker dramatics, the Black Swan, is confident: she's free to do whatever she wants, and that attitude helps in my skating. The White Swan is, I feel, more what I'm actually like off the ice: I'm a lot quieter, and if someone tells me to do something, I'll just do it.
Remember that you are a Black Swan. — © Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Remember that you are a Black Swan.
I have this really morbid, awesome love for the movie Black Swan.
If troubled companies want to explain away 2008 as a 'black swan,' then someone should take responsibility for creating the oil slick that seems to have tarred the entire flock!
'Black Swan' does what Hollywood movies have always done - it spends its energies on getting some surface things right while getting everything important wrong. Darren Aronofsky, the director, applies the same techniques and the same sensibility here as he did with 'The Wrestler,' only with a prettier protagonist.
I, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due.
I had the opportunity to train with Natalie Portman for 'Black Swan,' and the program we created was intense and involved a lot of travel.
I was brought up in black neighborhoods in South Baltimore. And we really felt like we were very black. We acted black and we spoke black. When I was a kid growing up, where I came from, it was hip to be black. To be white was kind of square.
Slashing its way to the finish line, 'Black Swan' is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.
In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.
My last night as Isabella Swan. Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen. Though the whole marriage ordeal was a thorn in my side, I had to admit that I liked the sound of that. - bella swan
Black was bestlooking. ... Ebony was the best wood, the hardest wood; it was black. Virginia ham was the best ham. It was black on the outside. Tuxedos and tail coats were black and they were a man's finest, most expensive clothes. You had to use pepper to make most meats and vegetables fit to eat. The most flavorsome pepper was black. The best caviar was black. The rarest jewels were black: black opals, black pearls.
Technical things are getting more mechanical. Take 'Swan Lake,' the Black Swan pas de deux. Now, my goodness, they're turning not just 32 fouettes - but double or triple pirouettes.
I think Kristen is incredibly brave. She played such a good version Bella Swan, people think Kristen Stewart is Bella Swan. She's not, you know? If you meet Kristen, she's wildly kind of giggly and vivacious and rebellious and naughty - all things that Bella Swan isn't.
'Black Panther' had a whole cast of beautiful black brilliance. Black scientists. Black presidents. The style. The technology. The color. — © Shaun King
'Black Panther' had a whole cast of beautiful black brilliance. Black scientists. Black presidents. The style. The technology. The color.
They were doing the Dying Swan at the ballet. And there was a rumor that some bookmarkers had drifted into town from upstate New York and that they had fixed the bullet. There was a lot of money bet on the swan to live.
There is a black which is old and a black which is fresh. Lustrous black and dull black, black in sunlight and black in shadow.
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