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Quotations about Flies
Nothing is made in vain, but the fly came near it. ~Mark Twain [quoted in Merle Johnson, "More Maxims of Mark," 1927
God in His wisdom made the fly,
And then forgot to tell us why.
~Ogden Nash, "The Fly," Good Intentions, 1942
The fly has a remarkable impoverished memory, you may drive him out of your ear; and he will land on your forehead; hit him again, and he enters your nose, the oftener you get rid of him in one spot, the more he gets onto another... ~Josh Billings (1818–1885), "The Fly" [spelling standardized and text a little altered
Opening a window to let out a fly and ending up with thirty midges, three wasps, two bees and an owl ~Rob Temple, verybritishproblems.com, 2013
It seems to me that monuments are ill-distributed in this world. I don't see why a monument hasn't been erected to the men who invented flytraps and flyswatters. ~Dorothy Scarborough, "Entomology on a Country Porch," From a Southern Porch, 1919
If you kill one fly, ten more will come to its funeral. ~Proverb
Mark Twain says that nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be mistaken for a huckleberry, and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary as a currant, it dies happy. ~Puck, 1877 July 25th [Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, in Everyone's Mark Twain, cites this quote from Connecticut Courant Supplement, 1878 January 10th.
Put cream and sugar on a fly, and it tastes very much like a black raspberry. ~E. W. Howe, 1909
A fly does not mind dying in coconut cream. ~Swahili proverb
King James said to the fly, Have I three kingdoms, and thou must needs fly into my eye? ~“Religion,” The Table-Talk of John Selden, Esq. (1584–1654), edited by Richard Milward, 1689
FLY-SCREEN An arrangement for keeping flies in the house. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Foolish Dictionary, Executed by Gideon Wurdz, Master of Pholly, Doctor of Loquacious Lunacy, etc., 1904
"But, Aunt Mandy," I insisted, going after one agile fly which danced before me, "these flies are more intelligent and progressive than they used to be. These flies now go to college and learn all about germs, and read the newspapers, to find out mischief they can do. They'll kill us if they can, so the only thing for us to do is to swat them first." ~Dorothy Scarborough, "Entomology on a Country Porch," From a Southern Porch, 1919
The flyswatter is a great sport. I make fancy strokes or side-curves with the weapon, after the fashion of expert tennis players, and have gained great dexterity in landing flies. ~Dorothy Scarborough, "Entomology on a Country Porch," From a Southern Porch, 1919
I'd rather have ten snakes in the house than one fly. ~Mark Twain, letter, 1910
The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly swatter. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Henry Hatfield and Franz H. Mautner, in The Lichtenberg Reader, 1959
Fly-swatting releases all the evil impulses in humanity, gives one's antagonism an airing, keeps alive the healthy disposition to fight. The desire to smite and slay is inborn in man — and woman — and if given no outlet such as swatting flies, is liable to lead to destructive wars. ~Dorothy Scarborough, "Entomology on a Country Porch," From a Southern Porch, 1919
In the midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together, embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat tails; going through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if it knew it was perfectly safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom's hands itched to grab for it they did not dare — he believed his soul would be instantly destroyed if he did such a thing while the prayer was going on. ~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876
One fly makes a summer. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, 1893
Do what we can, summer will have its flies... ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I like to psychoanalyze the flies. They are very inquisitive, for instance, — eager to investigate anything, taste anything, crawl over any object from a buzz-saw to a bald head. Flies are the most obstinate creatures in the universe for they never give up an undertaking. They don't know how to desist. ~Dorothy Scarborough, "Entomology on a Country Porch," From a Southern Porch, 1919 [a little altered
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published 2004 May 23
revised 2019 Oct 28
last saved 2022 Aug 20
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