Geese

Geese are waterfowl belonging to the tribe Anserini of the family Anatidae. This tribe comprises the genera Anser (the grey geese), Branta (the black geese) and Chen (the white geese). A number of other birds, mostly related to the shelducks, have "goose" as part of their names. More distantly related members of the family Anatidae are swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller.

As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky. ~ William Shakespeare

Quotes

• “That’s The Goose,” he said. The way he said it, I could hear the capitals.
  I stared at it. It looked like any other goose, fat, self-satisfied and short-tempered.
  • Isaac Asimov, Pâté de Foie Gras (originally published in the September 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction)

• I dare not hope to please a Cinna's ear.
  Or sing what Varus might vouchsafe to hear;
  Harsh are the sweetest lays that I can bring,
  So screams a goose where swans melodious sing.
  • James Beattie, Translation of Vergil, Pastoral 9; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 329.

• GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• 鹅 鹅 鹅，
  曲 项 向 天 歌。
  白 毛 浮 绿 水，
  红 掌 拨 清 波。
  • Goose, goose, goose,
    You bend your neck towards the sky and sing.
    Your white feathers float on the emerald water,
    Your red feet push the clear waves.
  • Luo Binwang, "Ode to the Goose" (《咏鹅》)

• Mankind naturally and generally love to be flatter'd: Whatever sooths our Pride, and tends to exalt our Species above the rest of the Creation, we are pleas'd with and easily believe, when ungrateful Truths shall be with the utmost Indignation rejected. "What! bring ourselves down to an Equality with the Beasts of the Field! with the meanest part of the Creation! 'Tis insufferable!" But, (to use a Piece of common Sense) our Geese are but Geese tho' we may think 'em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful.
  • Benjamin Franklin, "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain" (1725).

• A fox should not be of the jury at a goose's trial.
  • Thomas Fuller, Proverbs (1732), p. 116.

• Shall I, like Curtius, desperate in my zeal,
  O'er head and ears plunge for the common weal?
  Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
  And cackling save the monarchies of Tories?
  • Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (1728 to 1743), Book I, line 209.

• As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
  Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
  Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
  Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595–1596), Act III, scene 2, line 20.

• Idem Accio quod Titio jus esto.
  • What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
  • Marcus Terentius Varro, quoting Gellius, III, XVI. 13; same used by Swift (Jan. 24, 1710); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 329.