Flies

Flies are insects of the order Diptera (di = two, and ptera = wings). They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax. The presence of a single pair of wings distinguishes true flies from other insects with "fly" in their name.

• I am perfectly willing to share the room with a fly, as long as he is patrolling that portion of the room I don't occupy. But if he starts that smart-ass fly shit, buzzing my head and repeatedly landing on my arm, he is engaging in high-risk behavior.
  • George Carlin, Brain Droppings (1997).

• He is an extraordinary animal is the house fly. Go where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he will be buzzing round – if this event should happen to occur in summer – watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
  • H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines, Chapter 5, "Our March into the Desert"

• God in His wisdom made the fly
  And then forgot to tell us why.
  • Ogden Nash, The Fly, reported in John MacKay Shaw, Childhood in Poetry (1967), Volume 3, p. 1856.

• Everything was giant-sized, as if I were looking through binoculars. "I" was walking up giant stalks. At first I didn't know what they were or what I was, for that matter. The stalks were tall as redwood trees, and suddenly "I" realized that I was an insect of some kind. This was a grass blade. I thought I was a fly in a gigantic forest -- a giant fly, because everything was so large and super-real, and I;m used to thinking of flies as small. But I was an ordinary fly. I realized, and this was what the world looked like! Oddly enough, this made me feel better, I didn't care what I was; as long as I was something. So I felt myself go up the grass blade. It's impossible to verbalize the sensations I had, but I remember being aware of the weight of my wings. They seemed very sturdy and reassuring.
  • Jane Roberts, Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book, p. 62.

• King James said to the fly, "Have I three kingdoms, and thou must needs fly into my eye?"
  • John Selden, Table-Talk (1689), ed. Edward Arber (London: Alex. Murray & Son, 1868), p. 102.

• Flies enter an open mouth.
  • Sumerian proverb, Collection III at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BCE.
  • A variant is present in Jacula Prudentum (1651) by George Herbert: Into a mouth shut flies flie not.

• 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", in Sonnets, Lyrics, and Translations (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1873), p. 41.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 282.

• We see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.
  • Francis 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!
  • Francis 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.
  • Francis Bacon, Sylvia Sylvarum, Century I, Experiment 100.

• Haceos miel, y paparos han moscas.
  • Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, II. 43.

• The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
  • John Gay, The Beggar's Opera, Act II, scene 2, line 35.

• To a boiling pot flies come not.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

• I saw a flie within a beade
  Of amber cleanly buried.
  • Robert 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."
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, Book 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.

• 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.

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