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Eeyore
In the Winnie-the-Pooh books, Owl is a scholarly old owl who lives in the Hundred Acre Wood. He thinks he’s highly intelligent, and everyone seems to agree with him. But actually, Owl’s abstract knowledge is pointless, and he sabotages himself by over-thinking everything. For instance, Rabbit respects Owl’s spelling abilities, but Owl believes that “Tuesday” is spelled with a “Two” and comes before “Thirdsday.” He uses complicated words like “customary procedure” (instead of “the Thing to Do”), which just confuses Pooh and his friends. He spends his free time writing about “Aardvarks and their Aberrations” and thinking about how to spell words like “Marmalade”—in fact, he’s so busy thinking about this that he barely notices when his house blows down. Hoff uses Owl to argue that knowledge can actually distract people from the path to wisdom and that scholars who study Taoism aren’t as trustworthy a source as actual practicing Taoists.
Owl Quotes in The Tao of Pooh
The The Tao of Pooh quotes below are all either spoken by Owl or refer to Owl. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Spelling Tuesday Quotes
Lao-tse wrote, “The wise are not learned; the learned are not wise.”
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On Monday, when the sun is hot,
I wonder to myself a lot:
“Now is it true, or is it not,
That what is which and which is what?”
On Tuesday, when it hails and snows,
The feeling on me grows and grows
That hardly anybody knows
If those are these or these are those.
On Wednesday, when the sky is blue
And I have nothing else to do,
I sometimes wonder if it’s true
That who is what and what is who.
On Thursday, when it starts to freeze,
And hoarfrost twinkles on the trees,
How very readily one sees
That these are whose—but whose are these?
On Friday…
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The Now of Pooh Quotes
Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the Forest.
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Get the entire The Tao of Pooh LitChart as a printable PDF.
Owl Character Timeline in The Tao of Pooh
The timeline below shows where the character Owl appears in The Tao of Pooh. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Spelling Tuesday
...another excerpt from the Winnie-the-Pooh books, Pooh goes to the Hundred Acre Wood to visit Owl, who he hopes will be able to answer his questions. Owl represents the busy, distinguished...
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In Winnie-the-Pooh, Rabbit respects Owl because he knows how to spell “Tuesday.” But in an imagined conversation with Hoff, Owl...
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Pooh points out that Owl has been using Hoff’s pencil to write about “Aardvarks and Their Aberrations.” Hoff notes that...
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Cottleston Pie
...he would rather be “alive in the mud [than] dead within the palace.” Pooh and Owl start talking about mud, but Hoff brings the conversation back to Taoism.
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...work with their weaknesses, they can turn them into strengths. (For example, Piglet escaped from Owl’s ruined house because he was small enough to fit through the letterbox.)
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The Pooh Way
...his way over to Eeyore’s house, he gets hungry and eats it. So he has Owl write “A Happy Birthday” on the jar and gifts it to Eeyore instead. Meanwhile, Piglet...
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Bisy Backson
.../ BISY / BACKSON.” Rabbit can’t figure out what a Backson is, and neither can Owl. But Chuang-tse knows. He wrote about a man who tried to run away from his...
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...work. The out-of-breath Rabbit visits Hoff and explains that he’s been running around to visit Owl, Roo, and Tigger, looking for the Uncarved Block. Then he hurries off. Bisy Backsons are...
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That Sort of Bear
Hoff asks Owl if he has seen Pooh, and Owl says Pooh was putting something in the closet....
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...and Piglet because of his Tz’u. On a different eventful day, Piglet and Pooh visit Owl, whose house suddenly blows down in the wind. To escape, Owl puts a piece of...
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After Piglet rescues Pooh and Owl, Pooh sings a song about Piglet’s bravery, and Piglet is flattered. Later, Eeyore finds Owl...
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Nowhere and Nothing
Similarly, after Eeyore’s tail disappeared, Owl gave Pooh complicated instructions for how to recover it, but Pooh ignored him. He went...
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The Now of Pooh
...Everyone can follow Tao, too, if they learn to hear that voice. Everyone has “an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh” within them. But most people live like Owl...
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