flies quotes

Dead flies causethe ointment of theapothecary tosend forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes10:1.

Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies. And in that heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish.

- Rupert Chawner Brooke
  'Heaven'.

My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.

-Elizabeth I
c.1582  'On Monsieur's Departure'.

Fast fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

-John Keats
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza 5.

O! would the Sons of Men once think their Eyes And Reason giv'n them but to study Flies? See Nature in some partial narrow shape, And let the Author of the Whole escape.

- Alexander Pope
  The Dunciad, bk.4, l.453^6.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

-Jonathan Swift
  A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind.