Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Fly
We see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.
Bacon—Historia Vitæ et Mortis.
It was prettily devised of Æsop: The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel, and said, What a dust do I raise!
Bacon—Of Vain-Glory, attributed to Æsop but found in Fables of Laurentius Abstemius.
We see how flies, and spiders, and the like, get a sepulchre in amber, more durable than the monument and embalming of the body of any king.
Bacon—Sylvia Sylvarum. Century I. Experiment 100.
Haceos miel, y paparos han moscas.
Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. II. 43.
The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
Gay—The Beggar’s Opera. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 35.
To a boiling pot flies come not.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
I saw a flie within a beade
Of amber cleanly buried.
Herrick—The Amber Bead.
The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt.
Isaiah. VII. 18.
A fly sat on the chariot wheel
And said “what a dust I raise.”
La Fontaine—Fables. Bk. VII. 9. Phædrus. III. 6. Musca et Mula.
Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Drink with me and drink as I!
Freely welcome to my cup,
Could’st thou sip and sip it up;
Make the most of life you may;
Life is short and wears away.
William Oldys—The Fly.
Oh! that the memories which survive us here
Were half so lovely as these wings of thine!
Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine
Now thou art gone.
Charles (Tennyson) Turner—On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book.
Baby bye
Here’s a fly,
Let us watch him. you and I,
How he crawls
Up the walls
Yet he never falls.
Theodore Tilton—Baby Bye.