Birds of a feather flock together

Birds of a feather flock together is an English proverb. The meaning is that beings of similar type, interest, personality, character, or other distinctive attribute tend to mutually associate. The first known written instance of metaphorical use of the flocking behavior of birds is found in the second century BC, where Ben Sira uses it in his apocryphal Biblical Book of Sirach, written about 180–175 BC. This was translated into Greek sometime after 117 BC, and it is this Greek version that has commonly been used, even in the Septuagint used by diaspora Jews. Although the Book of Sirach is not included in the Hebrew Bible, and therefore not considered scripture in Judaism, it is included in the Septuagint and the Old Testament of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In the Protestant traditions, historically, and still in continuation today in Lutheranism and Anglicanism, the Book of Sirach is an intertestamental text found in the Apocrypha, though it is regarded as noncanonical. Richard Challoner's 1752 version of the Douay–Rheims Bible translates this phrase in Sirach as
The idiom is sometimes spoken or written as an anapodoton, where only the first part is given and the second part is implied, as, for example "The whole lot of them are thick as thieves; well, birds of a feather, you know".

In early literature

The first known written instance of metaphorical use of the flocking behavior of birds is found in the second century BC, where Ben Sira uses it in his apocryphal Biblical Book of Sirach, written about 180–175 BC. This was translated into Greek sometime after 117 BC, and it is this Greek version that has commonly been used, even in the Septuagint used by diaspora Jews.
Verse 27:9 of this Greek version of Sira's Hebrew original is
Richard Challoner's 1752 version of the Douay–Rheims Bible translates this as
Other renderings give "Birds roost with their own kind, so honesty comes home to those who practice it", "Birds nest with their own kind, and honesty comes to those who work at it", and so forth.

In English literature

The first known use of the idiom in original English writing is 1545, when William Turner used a version of it in his anti-Catholic satire "The Rescuing of the Papist Fox":
Which may be rendered in 21st century English as
John Minsheu's The Dictionarie in Spanish and English has "Birdes of a feather will flocke togither". Philemon Holland's 1600 translation of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri has "As commonly birds of a feather will flye together", while Dryden's 1697 translation The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneis ascribes flocking behavior to humans: "What place the gods for our repose assigned / Friends daily flock..."
Benjamin Jowett's translation of Plato's 360 BC Republic, published in 1856 and in use since, has "Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says".
Plato's original is:
Jowett gives this as:
However, Jowett here is taking a liberty in rendering Plato's phrase into idiomatic English of his time; the Greek original has nothing about birds, and it is not known what "old proverb" is referred to. But as Jowett was long the standard translation, generations of students learned that the idiom was current in classical Athens. Later translations dispense with the bird reference, hewing more closely to the original text; Allan Bloom's 1968 translation of the passage, for instance has "By Zeus, I shall tell you just how it looks to me, Socrates, he said. Some of us who are about the same age often meet together and keep up the old proverb."
But Jowett's work was quite influential and respected in his time and after and his translation of Plato was the standard for about a century and is still used, putting the proverb in the mouth of a character to be read by generations of students and scholars.
The idiom appears occasionally in the literary canon, both in English and translations from other languages.
Swift's poem "A Conference, Between Sir Harry Pierce's Chariot, And Mrs. D. Stopford's Chair" has "And since we're so near, like birds of a feather / Let's e'en, as they say, set our horses together", while Anthony Trollope in The Prime Minister has "'They're birds of a feather,' said Lopez. 'Birds of a feather do fall out sometimes'...", and James Joyce in Ulysses has "I have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together." Tolstoy's War and Peace has "...so that birds of a feather may fight together".

Translation from other languages

Many cultures have similar sayings which, although not necessarily mentioning birds, may be idiomatically translated as "birds of a feather flock together".

Chinese: a form similar to anapodoton, called xiehouyu, is a folk tradition. One xiehouyu of similar meaning to "birds of a feather...", and which may be idiomatically translated as that, is 物以類聚, "Similar things collect...", where the second part is left unsaid and implied.
Finnish: "vakka kantensa valitsee" is an idiom with a similar meaning and it's also sometimes used as a local alternative to the English "birds of a feather flock together".
French: "Qui se ressemble, s'assemble", literally "who looks alike, assembles" is a common saying.
German: a similar proverb exists and it can be translated with "same and same like to join each other". It does not rhyme, but has an alliteration.
Hebrew: "הלך הזרזיר אצל העורב", also sometimes used as an anapodoton, e.g. "הלך הזרזיר...". The expression mostly carries a negative tone, meaning both starling and crow are complicit in their bad behavior, presumably because of the crow's bad behavior towards people and the starling's resemblance to it, or that both birds are unclean animals. The original Mishnaic Hebrew proverb is "לא לחינם הלך זרזיר אצל עורב, אלא מפני שהוא מינו" .
Italian: a similar proverb exists which consists of "chi si somiglia si piglia", and which can be translated as "who resembles each other takes the other".
Japanese: a similar proverb in is 目の寄る所へ玉が寄る, literally "where the eyes go, the eyeballs follow" but with an understood idiomatic meaning of "like draws like", which can be translated into idiomatic English as "birds of a feather flock together", as may the Japanese saying 類は友を呼ぶ, "similar calls a friend."
Persian: "کبوتر با کبوتر، باز با باز، کند همجنس با همجنس پرواز", literally "dove with dove, hawk with hawk, homogeneous birds fly together" is a similar proverb.
Swedish: "lika barn leka bäst" is also sometimes translated into idiomatic English as "birds of a feather flock together."
Urdu: a similar idiom is, which translates to "the thief's brother is also a thief," highlighting that individuals with similar negative traits tend to associate. Variations of this idiom include:,, . These versions emphasize association among individuals of similar character.