Oyster Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old oyster quotes, oyster sayings, and oyster proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Listen! Clam up your mouth and be silent like an oyster shell, for that tongue of yours is the enemy of the soul, my friend. When the lips are silent, the heart has a hundred tongues. Rumi
The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell. Andrew Carnegie
The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork. Oscar Wilde
We are bound to our bodies like an oyster to its shell. Plato
What strikes the oyster shell doesn't damage the pearl. Rumi
The world is your oyster. Yes, but in that oyster is the pearl; and to get to the pearl one has to first discard the shell and the flesh. Ian Gardner
I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals. George Berkeley
The world is an oyster, but you don't crack it open on a mattress. Arthur Miller
There is no irritant as painful as an ace up your sleeve that you can never use; it's the kind of thing that causes oysters to produce pearls. Sheila Ballantyne
Minds are like oysters. They spoil if you pry them open. Willa Gibbs
It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster’s shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters. Stephen King
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster. Theodore Roosevelt
The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearls. Chris Gardner
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. David Hume
You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Contentment is not happiness. An oyster may be contented. Happiness is compounded of richer elements. Christian Nestell Bovee
For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them. John Banville
Wisdom is a pearl whose oyster is truth. Matshona Dhliwayo
So many pearls to be had, if you were in the mood to open oysters. Maggie Stiefvater
Sand irritates the oyster and the oyster responds by becoming a beautiful pearl. Allow difficulties to serve your transformation in the blossoming consciousness that you are. Anonymous