50 Cardinal Quotes To Help You Spread Your Wings

By Clifton Sankofa | Published March 9, 2023

Spread your wings and fly with our cardinal quotes.

The word cardinal has several meanings, and our cardinal quotes explore all of them.

Tell us your favorite cardinal quote in the comment section below.

What is a cardinal?

A cardinal is a songbird of the bunting family.

They have stout bills and beautiful crests.

The males are usually all or mostly red.

Check out these cool cardinal facts:

Cardinals are early nesters.
Both male and female cardinal birds sing.
Some people put birdseed outside to keep cardinals as “pets.”

In many cultures, bird lovers have a special place in their hearts for cardinals.

Many people associate cardinals with pleasant memories or the idea that a deceased loved one is present.

Perhaps the cardinal’s comforting, beautiful, and cheerful song invokes pleasant memories from the past.

Or maybe the bold red color speaks to us; red is the color of blood, which gives us life.

For many, cardinals symbolically represent joy and hope.

When single people encounter cardinals, they believe the bird’s presence represents an omen that new romantic relationships are on the verge of manifesting.

In the United States, when people see cardinals in winter, they feel encouraged to look forward to springtime.

What is a Catholic Cardinal?

In the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinals are leading dignitaries nominated by the Pope.

These members form the Sacred College, which elects the Pope.

Most Cardinals are bishops and archbishops from around the world who lead their dioceses.

Some well-known Cardinals are Richelieu, Francis Assisi, and Ignatius Kung Pin Mei.

What are the cardinal directions?

The four cardinal directions are the four main compass directions.

Some people call them the cardinal points, known as north, south, east, and west.

Many denote each direction by the initials N, S, E, and W.

Knowledge of the cardinal points significantly improved humankind’s ability to travel, map, explore and imagine.

The invention of maps gave people a systematic way of recording locations and determining how to travel.

Many people use the north as the center point on the top of the map that determines direction.

In the past, in both medieval Europe and the Middle East, maps were made using the east at the top as the center point.

If you want to learn more about all things cardinal, check out our amazing cardinal quotes below.

Short cardinal quotes for cardinal lovers

You will love our short cardinal quotes if you love all things cardinal.

1. “I’m proud to be a Cardinal.” — Stan Musial

2. “Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience.” — W. H. Auden

3. “Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.” — Thomas Hobbes

4. “The Cardinal is at his wit’s end – it is true that he had not far to go.” — Lord Byron

5. “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

6. “If you call attention to yourself at the expense of the song, that’s the cardinal sin.” — Benmont Tench

7. “There’s a cardinal rule that you don’t talk about sharks. If you don’t see it, it’s not there.” — Mark Warkentin

8. “Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.” — Don Marquis

9. “One of the cardinal rules of copy editing is that every phone number published must be checked.” — Bill F. Walsh

10. “I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read.” — Siddhartha Mukherjee

The top quotes about Catholic Cardinals

Quotes about the Cardinals of the Catholic Church.

11. “Cedric Gibbons was the grand cardinal of the art department.” — Vincente Minnelli

12. “The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.” — David Novak

13. “I sat in the home of Billy Graham and in the residence of Cardinal Dolan and prayed with these men of God.” — Mitt Romney

14. “The closest I sailed to the wind was when I almost outed a most saintly Cardinal in a talk on homosexuality in public life.” — David Starkey

15. “After the war, prompted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, I entered Parliament so that a priest could speak out for the poor, as canon law at that time still permitted.” — Abbe Pierre

16. “My sons remember me most as a Cardinal. My one son is 26 years old, and I don’t think he’s ever seen me without a beard.” — Bruce Sutter

17. “Just as Cardinal Bernardin proposed that an of ethic of life be consistently applied to unite all the life issues, we need in our day to mine the church’s social teaching on solidarity.” — Blase J. Cupich

18. “Cardinal Raymond Burke is a 66-year-old guy who lives in Rome, dresses like Queen Elizabeth, and talks like someone who majored in misogyny at some bogus, backwoods, Bible-banging tent school.” — Mike Barnicle

19. “It’s unbelievable. I’m still trying to grasp the whole idea that I am an actually a Stanford Cardinal now.” — Devon Cajuste

20. “In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.” — Carl Bernstein

The best cardinal rules quotes about life

The cardinal rules are the primary rules we apply in life.

21. “Breaking a cardinal rule of spy craft, I actually let it be known that I wanted to work for the CIA.” — James Luceno

22. “Every time I see a cardinal, I know my grandmother is with me. This regal, red bird was Grandma’s favorite.” — Kris Carr

23. “I was very surprised when I heard that I had been chosen to receive the James Cardinal Gibbons Award.” — Aaron Neville

24. “Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other.” — Joyce Meyer

25. “I think it’s possible to have a conservative serve in a cardinal position, a subcommittee chair position, and be very effective.” — Tom Graves

26. “I’m not against speaking publicly and having passion for something. One of the cardinal beauties of America is that we have the freedom to do so.” — Raul Ruiz

27. “Until 2005, France had the only senior Catholic prelate in modern times who was born Jewish and still considered himself culturally Jewish: Cardinal Lustiger.” — Tom Reiss

28. “The fans know, and the Cardinals know that I want to be a Cardinal for my whole career. I love this city. The way that this city has embraced me and my family.” — Albert Pujols

29. “Joining forces with Cardinal Health supports Kinray’s mission to help retail independent pharmacies serve as an integral provider of care for our evolving health care system.” — Stewart Rahr

30. “In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.” — George Bernard Shaw

Cardinal principle and cardinal priority quotes for getting ahead in life

Many believe the cardinal principles they live by give them strength and inspiration.

31. “One must not make oneself cheap here – that is a cardinal point – or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.” — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

32. “I neither drink nor smoke, because my schoolmaster impressed upon me three cardinal virtues; cleanliness in person, cleanliness in mind; temperance.” — John Burns

33. “The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.” — Mao Zedong

34. “Clean living is the cardinal principle in the lives of the world’s greatest athletes, as the phenomenal performances of these outstanding characters will obviously show.” — Major Taylor I

35. “When the depressive psychosis has become manifest, its cardinal feature seems to be a mental inhibition which renders a rapport between the patient and the external world more difficult.” — Karl Abraham

Wise cardinal quotes to living life

36. “I think about my mother every day. But usually, the thoughts are fleeting – she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely, gone.” — Meghan O’Rourke

37. “A cardinal rule in budgeting and saving is to pay yourself first. Once your paycheck hits your account, wisdom has it that you should move some amount to savings even before you pay the bills.” — John Rampton

38. “A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.” — Stephen Covey

39. “In my family, there was one cardinal priority – education. College was not an option; it was mandatory. So even though we didn’t have a lot of money, we made it work. I signed up for financial aid, Pell Grants, work-study, anything I could.” — Eva Longoria

40. “The cardinal rule of taxation is that whatever you put a levy on, you’ll inevitably get less of. Taxing corporate activity means less investing, less hiring, fewer jobs, and a smaller economy, which hurts the rich, the poor, and the middle class alike.” — Adam Davidson

Cardinal sin quotes to live by

Avoiding cardinal sins in any profession is vital to our success.

41. “No man could be equipped for the presidency if he has never been tempted by one of the seven cardinal sins.” — Eugene McCarthy

42. “The cardinal rule for any performer is that they should know themselves before they enter the spotlight, and I didn’t.” — Neil Diamond

44. “A cardinal principle that we must not stray from – no exceptions – is that your genetic information is your business in terms of who sees it.” — Francis Collins

44. “That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate – that was the one cardinal sin in our community.” — Condoleezza Rice

45. “I have family and friends who are strong Cardinal fans, and they are having a tough time since I signed. They want to root for me, but rooting for the Cubs is next to a sin.” — Ben Zobrist

More cardinal quotes to consider

46. “I committed a cardinal sin as a kid. I never spoke, and my mother thought there was something seriously wrong with me. A silent child is regarded as a problem in Ireland, and I just read all the time.” — Ken Bruen

47. “If you’re a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong; that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring.” — David Halberstam

48. “In the old days, it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn’t have opinions. When I was producing natural history programs, I didn’t use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programs.” — David Attenborough

49. “The cardinal sin in sports, what could really wreck it, is not cheating to win, which has gone on forever, but cheating to lose. That threatens a fundamental aspect of sports’ appeal, which is their spontaneity. If games are fixed, they’re no different from movies; they’re scripted.” — Michael Mandelbaum

50. “Until fairly recently, Amish teachers would reprimand the student who raised his or her hand as being too individualistic. Calling attention to oneself, or being ‘prideful,’ is one of the cardinal Amish worries. Having your name or photo in the papers, even talking to the press, is almost a sin.” — Howard Rheingold