A collection of proverbs, expressions, quotes, poems, songs, etc. all about insects, spiders and some other small critters.
If you know more insect related quotes or proverbs, please send me a message.
Ant Bed bug Bee Beetle Bookworm Bug Butterfly Caterpillar Centipede Chafer Cicada Cockroach Cricket Drone Dung beetle Firefly Flea Fly Fruit fly Glowworm Gnat Grasshopper Green-fly Hornet Insect Katydid Locust Louse Mantis Mayfly Millipede Mosquito Moth Nit Sand fly Scorpion Silkworm Spider Termite Tick Vinegar fly Wasp Water beetle Water insect Weevil Worm
Ant
A coconut shell full of water is a sea to an ant.
Indian
A coconut shell full of water is an ocean to an ant.
An ant can do more than an ox that is lying down.
An ant guarding a mango
Used for a boy who is careful not to let other boys near his girlfriend
An ant hole may collapse an embankment.
Japanese
An ant is over six feet tall when measured by its own foot-rule.
Slovenian
An ant may work its heart out, but it can’t make money.
An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.
Mexican
An ant watching over a bunch of mangoes
Worrying about something you will not get any benefit from
An ant’s nest could bring down a hill.
Japanese
Ants can attack with a grain of rice.
Madagascar
Ants die in sugar.
Malawi
Ants follow fat.
Ants live safely till they have gotten wings.
Ants never lend, ants never borrow.
Any spoke will lead the ant to the hub.
At high tide fish eat ants; at low tide ants eat fish.
Thailand
Be thine enemy an ant, see in him an elephant.
Turkish
Better an ant’s head than a lion’s tail.
Maltese
Better to be an ant’s head than a lion’s tail.
Armenian
Caution is not cowardice; even the ants march armed.
Ugandan
Don’t even step on an ant.
Greek
Even an ant can hurt an elephant.
Proverb
Even the ant has his bite.
Turkish
Even the sharpest ear cannot hear an ant singing.
Sudanese
Even the wishes of a small ant reach heaven.
Japanese
Every ruler sleeps on an anthill.
Afghani
For an ant to have wings would be his undoing.
Iranian
Go to the ant thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Bible: Proverbs 6:6
Go to the ant you sluggard
Bible: Proverbs 6:6 A warning against laziness.
He who cannot pick up an ant, and wants to pick up an elephant will some day see his folly.
African
He who runs from the white ant may stumble upon the stinging ant.
Nigeria
He who storms in like a whirlwind returns like an ant.
Borneo
If they are offered winged ants, people will eat them.
African
In a battle between elephants, the ants get squashed
Thailand
In an ant colony dew is a flood.
Afghan
In every enemy that is an ant, behold an elephant.
Turkish
Many ants kill a camel.
Turkish
None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.
She’s got ants in her pants
A state of restless impatience.
Stir up an ant’s nest.
The ambitious one makes friends with the elephant, then tramples upon the ant.
Indian
The constant creeping of ants will wear away the stone.
The eyeless ant asked God: Give me eye-lashes.
Georgian
The little ant at its hole is full of courage.
African
The tiny ant dares to enter the lion’s ear.
Armenian
The world flatters the elephant and tramples on the ant.
Indian
Though your enemy is the size of an ant, look upon him as an elephant.
Danish
To the ant, a few drops of dew is a flood.
Iranian
When an ant gets wings, it loses its head.
Bosnian
When the ant grows wings it is about to die.
Arabic
When the water rises the fish eat the ants, when the water falls the ants eat the fish
Where the sugar is, there will the ant be also.
Philippines
Where there is sugar, there are bound to be ants.
Malay
An elephant may be big, but it falls on its face more often than an ant.
“Semut diseberang lautan terlihat, gajah didepan mata tidak” – An ant across the ocean is seen, but not the elephant nearby
Malay / Indonesian This is a proverb for a person who sees faults in others while not seeing obvious faults in themselves
Bed-bug
Ticks, bedbugs and a crying child are insupportable.
Lebanese
You can’t have more bed-bugs than a blanket-full.
Spanish
Bee
A bee in (one’s) bonnet
An impulsive, often eccentric turn of mind; a notion.
A bee was never caught in a shower.
English
A dead bee will make no honey.
English
A hive of bees in May is worth a load of hay.
As busy as a bee.
Bees do not become hornets.
French
Bees that have honey in their mouths have stings in their tails.
English
Better a handful of bees than a basket full of flies.
Moroccan
Better have one bee than a host of flies.
Italian
Bless the flowers and the weeds, my birds and bees.
Boys avoid the bees that stung’em.
English
Busy as a bee.
Very busy.
Every bee’s honey is sweet.
English
From the same flower the bee extracts honey and the wasp gall.
He who would gather honey must bear the sting of the bees.
He’s like the master bee that leads forth the swarm.
English
If a bee didn’t have a sting, she couldn’t keep her honey.
If a bee stings you once, it’s the bee’s fault; if a bee stings you twice, it’s your own damn fault.
If you let the bee be, the bee will let you be.
In that day the LORD will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria.
Bible: Isaiah 7:18
Its the roving bee that gathers honey.
No bees, no honey; no work, no money.
Old bees yield no honey.
One bee is as good as a handful of flies.
German
One bee is better than a thousand flies.
Spanish
She thinks she’s the bee’s knees
She has a very high opinion of herself.
Sweet as honey.
The bee stays not in a hive that has no honey.
Turkish
The bee that makes the honey doesn’t stand around the hive, and the man who makes the money has to worry, work, and strive.
The bee works all summer and eats honey all winter.
The bee’s knees
An excellent or the best person or thing.
The bees make honey but cannot eat it; the sea-swallows build nests but cannot live in them.
Vietnamese
The buzzing of the flies does not turn them into bees.
Georgian
The drone bee dies soon after the wedding night.
The three most difficult to understand; the mind of a woman, the labor of the bees and the ebb and flow of the tide.
The wise bee does not sip from a flower that has fallen.
China
When bees are old they yield no honey.
English
When the bee sucks, it makes honey; when the spider, poison.
Where bees are there is honey.
English
Where there are bees, there is honey.
While honey lies in every flower, it takes a bee to get the honey out.
Beetle
A beetle is a beauty in the eyes of his mother.
Proverb
Beetle away
Move away quickly
Beetle brain
Not too clever
Crime leaves a trail like a water beetle; like a snail, it leaves its silver track; like a horse-mango, it leaves its smell.
Malawi
Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother.
Moroccan
However much the beetle is afraid it will not stop the lizard swallowing it.
African
In his own nest a beetle is a sultan.
Egyptian
In the steppe even a beetle is meat.
Russian
O’er folded blooms On swirls of musk, The beetle booms adown the glooms And bumps along the dusk.
James Whitcomb Riley
One beetle knows another.
Irish
One beetle recognizes another.
Irish
The beetle is a beauty in the eyes of its mother.
Arabian, Egyptian
The beetle is a bride in the arms of its mother.
Arabian
The dung beetle, seeing its child on the wall, thinks it sees a pearl on a thread.
Arabic
When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of the globe, he doesn’t realize that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it.
Albert Einstein
When they started to shoe the Sultan’s horse, the beetle stretched out its leg.
Arabic
Without guilt / What is a man? An animal, isn’t he? / A wolf forgiven at his meat, / A beetle innocent in his copulation.
Archibald MacLeish
Do you dare to die? The sense of death is most in apprehension, and the poor beetle that we tread upon feels a pang as great as when a giant dies.
William Shakespeare
Whenever I hear of the capture of rare beetles, I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of a trumpet.
Charles Darwin
Bookworm
Bookworm
A person who is very fond of reading
Bug
A bug
A fault in a machine (computer)
As snug as a bug in a rug.
Very snug. Warm and comfortable.
Bug-eyed
With eyes that stick out (e.g. bugeyed with fright)
Bug-hunter
Entomologist
Bugs are bugs whether they bite or not.
Bugs are not going to inherit the earth. They own it now. So we might as well make peace with the landlord.
T. Eisner
Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.
Vladimir Nabokov
Put a bug in (someone’s) ear.
To impart useful information to (another) in a subtle, discreet way.
The best way to put an end to the bugs is to set fire to the bed.
Mexican
To bug (1)
To bother, to say something more than once as a reminder and thereby annoy the listener
To bug (2)
To fit a room or telephone with a hidden microphone. To listen secretly to a conversation
You can’t have more bed-bugs than a blanket-full.
Spanish
Big black bugs bleed blue black blood but baby black bugs bleed blue blood
Tongue Twister
A big black bug bit a black dog on his big black nose
Tongue twister
Butterfly
A social butterfly
A person interested principally in frivolous pleasure
Butterflies come to pretty flowers.
Korean
Butterflies forget that they were once caterpillars.
Swedish
Butterflies store no money.
Happiness is a butterfly.
Have butterflies in one’s stomach
To have a nervous feeling in one’s stomach. Being in love.
Proverbs are like butterflies, some are caught, some fly away
Take not a musket and kill a butterfly.
The butterfly often forgets it once was a caterpillar.
Swedish
The butterfly that flies among the thorns will tear its wings.
African
The butterfly that settles on a branch is afraid that he will break it.
Armenian
The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly.Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, ‘Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?’
Chuang Tzu
You are like the butterfly that flies from flower to flower.
My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.
Vladimir Nabokov
Love is like a butterfly, hold it to tight it will crush, hold it to loose, it will fly.
Flies like a butterfly, stings like a bee.
Mohammad Ali: boxer
We will all laugh at gilded butterflies
Shakespeare
Caterpillar
Butterflies forget that they were once caterpillars.
Swedish
Even caterpillars can fly if they would just lighten up.
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.
Charles Darwin
If caterpillars were meant to fly, God would have given them wings.
If only I were a bird! Ah, but eating caterpillars?
Palestinian
Two caterpillars are conversing and a beautiful butterfly floats by. One caterpillar turns and says to the other: ‘You’ll never see me flying like one of those butterflies.’
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.
Richard Bach
What the caterpillar calls the end, the butterfly calls the beginning.
Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.
Bradley Millar
The butterfly often forgets it once was a caterpillar.
Swedish
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
R. Buckminster Fuller
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Richard Bach
Centipede
A centipede though dead will not fall
Japanese
Don’t turn over the rubbish to look for a centipede
Though the centipede has one of its legs broken, this does not affect its movement.
Burmese
Chafer
One chafer knows another.
Irish
Cicada
Unlike the singing cicadas, the silent fireflies burn themselves.
Japanese
Cockroach
Fowls will not spare a cockroach that falls in their midst.
Nigeria
If chickens were judges, cockroaches would be sentenced.
Jamaican
In a court of fowls, the cockroach never wins his case.
Rwandan
Cricket
A bell cricket is kept in its cage because of its song.
Japanese
All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.
Bible: Leviticus 11
It is not summer until the crickets sing.
Greek
The cricket cries, the year changes.
Cameroonian
Until the crickets sing it is not summer
Greek
You can catch a cricket in your hand but its song is all over the field.
Madagascar
You don’t teach a cricket to jump
To have a cricket on the hearth, is the luckiest thing in all the world!
Charles Dickens
Drone
The drone bee dies soon after the wedding night.
Dung beetle
The dung beetle, seeing its child on the wall, thinks it sees a pearl on a thread.
Arabic
Firefly
Fireflies shine only when in motion.
The light of the firefly is sufficient for itself only.
The man who has been beaten by a firebrand runs away at the sight of a firefly.
Unlike the singing cicadas, the silent fireflies burn themselves.
Japanese
Flea
A dog in a kennel barks at his fleas — a hunting dog does not feel them.
China
A dog’s fleas are its jewels.
Malta
A flea can trouble a lion more than the lion can harm a flea.
Kenya
A flea on top of a bald head.
China
A flea-bitten horse never tires.
A reasonable amount of fleas is good for a dog. They keep him from broodin’ on being a dog.
A single finger cannot catch fleas.
Haitian
Ambition and fleas jump high.
German
An elephant does not feel a flea bite.
English
An Englishman will burn his bed to catch a flea.
Turkish
Better the wolves eat us than the fleas.
Do not flay a flea for hide and tallow.
Don’t look for fleas on others to get them on your own head
Mind your own business
Don’t strike a flea on a tiger’s head.
China
Don’t throw your blanket in the fire just because it has one flea in it.
Romanian
Dust does not rise because a dog-flea hops.
Myanmar
Even a flea can bite.
Even good dogs have fleas.
Russian
Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.
German
Fleabag
A seedy, rundown hotel or other lodging place
Flea-bite
Small inconvenience
Flea-bitten
Seedy, dilapidated
Flea-market
Openair market selling cheap and secondhand goods
Fleapit
A cheap, squalid theater
Have patience, fleas, the night is long!
Nicaragua
He avenged himself on fleas, and burned up his bed.
Yiddish
If a flea had money, it would buy its own dog.
Jamaican
If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas.
In a garment made of silk there are no fleas.
Estonian
It is easier to guard a bushel of fleas than a woman.
German
It is easier to guard a sack full of fleas than a girl in love.
Jewish
It is easier to watch over one hundred fleas than one young girl.
Polish
It’s not the fleas of the dog that make the cat meow.
China
Money begets money, and fleas beget fleas.
Malta
Nothing in haste but catching fleas.
Dutch
Nothing should be done in haste but gripping a flea.
German
Nothing should be done in a hurry except catching fleas
Only fleas are to be caught quickly.
Russian
Temple dogs are always looking for a place with no fleas, not realising they are carrying them with them as they go
The brave flea dares to eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
The death throes of an elephant are not so annoying as a living flea.
Zanzibar
The dog in the doghouse barks at his fleas, the dog that hunts does not feel them.
The earth does not shake when the flea coughs.
Austrian
The fatter the flea, the leaner the dog.
German
The lean dog is all fleas.
The loudest bark rids not a dog of his fleas.
The more hair a dog has, the more fleas he will have.
Netherlands Antillean
The skinnier the dog, the more fleas he has.
German
Those who sleep with dogs gets up with fleas.
American
Those who sleep with dogs will rise with fleas.
Italian
‘We have rowed well’ said the flea as the fishing boat arrives at its mooring.
Latvian
Where there are dogs there are fleas
Where there is smoke there is fire
Who does not think that his fleas are gazelles?
Arabic
Who play wid de puppy get bit wid de fleas.
British Guiana
With a flea in one’s ear
With severe and clearly expressed anger and disapproval from somebody; With an annoying hint or a stinging rebuke
You can only know the fleas in the bed you have slept in.
African
Dogs have fleas in order to keep them from thinking about being dogs
Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their back to bite ’em
And little fleas have lesser fleas
And so ad infinitum.
Upon their back to bite ’em
And little fleas have lesser fleas
And so ad infinitum.
Fly
A closed mouth catches no flies.
French
A cow that has no tail should not try to chase away flies.
Guinean
A drop of honey catches more flies than a hogshead of vinegar.
Proverb
A fly can drive away horses.
Greece
A fly does not mind dying in coconut cream.
Africa, Swahili
A fly follows honey.
A fly in the ointment
A detrimental circumstance or detail; a drawback
A fly is nothing; yet it creates loathsomeness.
Egypt
A fly may conquer a lion.
A fly on the wall
A person who watches others without being noticed
A fly to a fly.
A fly will not get into a closed mouth.
Moroccan
A person is not a fly.
A shut mouth catches no flies.
A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
An eagle does not catch flies.
Proverb
And the LORD did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies.
Bible: Exodus 8:24
and the LORD did what Moses asked: The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people; not a fly remained.
Bible: Exodus 8:31
As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
Bible: Ecclesiastes 10:1
Better a handful of bees than a basket full of flies.
Moroccan
Better have one bee than a host of flies.
Italian
Big flies break the spider web.
Italian
But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the LORD, am in this land.
Bible: Exodus 8:22
Can’t kill flies with a spear.
Die like flies
To die in very large numbers
Do not compare a fly with an elephant.
Greek
Do not draw your sword to kill a fly.
Korean
Do not make an elephant out of a fly.
Russian
Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
China
Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend’s forehead.
China
Do what we can, summer will have its flies.
Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment.
Eagles don’t catch flies.
Even a fly has its anger.
Italian
Even a fly has its spleen.
English
Even a lion must defend himself against the flies.
Even flies have ears.
Tanzanian
Even if a chef cooks just a fly, he would keep the breast for himself.
Polish
Every fly has its shadow.
Portuguese
Fine fruit will have flies about it.
New England
Flies and priests can enter any house.
Russian
Flies are caught more readily with a single drop of honey than with a cask of vinegar.
Turkish
Flies come to feasts unasked.
English
Flies do not swarm on a new pot.
India, Tamil
Flies flock to the lean horse.
Italian
Flies go to lean horses.
English
Flies hunt lean horses.
Flies know well the sweet seller’s beard.
Lebanese
Flies never bother a boiling pot.
Flies swarm where there is honey.
India, Tamil
Flies will easily fly into the honey — their problem is how to get out.
Iranian
Flies will never leave the shop of a sweet-maker.
Iranian
Flies will not land on a boiling pot.
Flies will tickle lions being dead.
English
Foul-smelling objects swarm with flies.
Japanese
Haste is good only for catching flies.
Russian
He does not harm a fly
He is kind and gentle
He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.
Bible: Psalm 78:45
He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, and gnats throughout their country.
Bible: Psalm 105:31
Hungry flies bite sore
Hungry flies bite sore.
English
If you are looking for a fly in your food it means that you are full.
South African
If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground where they are.
Bible: Exodus 8:21
In that day the LORD will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria.
Bible: Isaiah 7:18
In times of emergency the devil eats flies.
German
Into a closed mouth no fly will enter.
Moroccan
Into a shut mouth flies fly not.
It’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar
Laws are like cobwebs where the small flies are caught and the big ones break through.
Laws catch flies but let hornets go.
English
Laws catch flies, but let hornets go free.
Scottish
Laws, like the spider’s web, catch the fly and let the hawk go free.
Spanish
Let every one keep off the flies with his own tail.
Italian
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail.
Bible: Isaiah 51:6
Like flies on shit.
Make yourself all honey and the flies will devour you.
English
More courtship lives in carrion flies than Romeo
William Shakespeare. Romeo & Juliet
More flies are caught with a drop of honey than a barrel of vinegar.
Danish
More flies are caught with a spoonful of syrup than a cask of vinegar.
Dutch
More flies are caught with a spoonful of syrup than with a barrel full of vinegar.
Dutch
More flies are caught with honey than with vinegar.
French
Moses answered, ‘As soon as I leave you, I will pray to the LORD, and tomorrow the flies will leave Pharaoh and his officials and his people.Only be sure that Pharaoh does not act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to offer sacrifices to the LORD.’
Bible: Exodus 8:29
No flies get into a shut mouth.
Spanish
No flies land on a boiling pot.
Spanish
No fly dares to get near a boiling kettle.
Mexican
One bee is as good as a handful of flies.
German
One bee is better than a thousand flies.
Spanish
One catches more flies with a spoonful of honey than with twenty casks of vinegar.
French
One dead fly spoils much good ointment.
New England
People seek out big shots as flies seek out the elephant’s tail.
Indonesian
The biting fly gets nothing by alighting on the back of the tortoise.
African
The biting fly has no one to come to his aid in trouble.
African
The busy fly is in every man’s dish.
Spanish
The buzzing of the flies does not turn them into bees.
Georgian
The eagle does not catch flies.
Romanian
The eagle does not feed on flies.
Turkish
The flight of the eagle will not stop that of the sand fly.
African
The fly does not kill, but it does spoil.
Hebrew
The fly flutters around the candle till at last it gets burnt.
Dutch
The fly flutters around the candle till it gets burnt.
Dutch
The fly has no pity for the thin man.
Congolese
The fly heeds not death; eating is all to him.
African
The fly on the back of a water buffalo thinks that it’s taller than the buffalo.
Filipino
The fly sat upon the axle of the chariot-wheel and said: ‘What a lot of dust I raise!’
Greek
The fly that bites the tortoise breaks its beak.
Italian
The fly that stands on the carabao’s (water buffalo) back thinks that it is taller than the carabao.
Philippines
The idiot who has his eye on your wife is like a blood sucking fly.
Egyptian
The most fragrant of flowers are eaten by the green-fly.
Malawi
The spider and the fly can’t make a deal.
Jamaican
The spiders web lets the rat escape and catches the fly.
Spanish
There are no flies on him
He is not a fool, he cannot be tricked
They are flies that are born of a wasp.
Indonesian
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Markx
To a boiling pot flies come not.
English
To be as small as a vinegar fly and want to shit like an elephant
Too big for your boots
When a fly does not get up off a dead body, he is buried with it.
African
Where there is butter there are flies.
Polish
With honey you can catch more flies than with vinegar.
Yiddish
You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
You can catch more flies with molasses than vinegar.
You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
English
God in his wisdom
Made the fly
And then forgot
To tell us why
Made the fly
And then forgot
To tell us why
Ogden Nash
When I have spun the web they may take the flies, but not before.
Sherlock Holmes In: The Five Orange Pips
Fruit fly
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Markx
Glowworm
A man once struck with a firebrand runs away on seeing a glowworm.
Bengalese
As day breaks, the glowworms say: ‘We’ve lit up the world!’
Indian
Glowworms are not lanterns.
French
If the timid sees a glowworm he shouts: ‘Fire!’
Armenian
It is foolish to show glowworms by candle light.
Italian
We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow-worm.
Winston Churchill
Gnat
He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, and gnats throughout their country.
Bible: Psalm 105:31
Human knowledge will be erased from the world’s archives before we possess the last word that a gnat has to say to us.
Henri Fabre
Grasshopper
All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.
Bible: Leviticus 11
Different fields, different grasshoppers; different seas, different fish.
Indonesian
If the hill is on fire the grasshoppers are roasted.
Madagascar
Knee-high to a grasshopper
A very small child
One can’t give a grasshopper to a child if one has not caught it yet.
Madagascar
Riding an elephant to catch grasshoppers
Using a sledge hammer to crack a nut
Most Internet users seem to have the attention span of grasshoppers
Stephen King
Green-fly
The most fragrant of flowers are eaten by the green-fly.
Malawi
Hornet
Bees do not become hornets.
French
Laws catch flies but let hornets go.
English
Laws catch flies, but let hornets go free.
Scottish
Insect
All flying insects that swarm are unclean to you; do not eat them.
Bible: Deuteronomy 14
All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.
Bible: Leviticus 11
Even a one-inch insect has a five tenths of a soul.
Japanese
He’s an insect
An insignificant or contemptible person.
I always felt that insects are the general rule, and everything else is a special case.
Paul Bystrak
Kill a small insect to let live a big one.
Japanese
One tiny insect may be enough to destroy a country.
Ancient Arabic
The big fish eat the little fish, the little fish eat the water-insects, and the water-insects eat the weeds and mud.
China
The hinge of a door is never crowded with insects.
China
The smallest insect may cause death by its bite.
The summer insect cannot talk of ice; the frog in the well cannot talk of heaven.
China
The summer insect knows not ice.
Japanese
To a rough approximation and setting aside vertebrate chauvinism, it can be said that essentially all organisms are insects.
R.M. May
The mortal enemies of man are not his fellows of another continent or race; they are the aspects of the physical world which limit or challenge his control, the disease germs that attack him and his domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that carry many of these germs as well as working notable direct injury. This is not the age of man, however great his superiority in size and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects.
W.C. Allee
These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes — nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good” and the “bad,” to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil — all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.”
Rachel Carson (in “Silent Spring”)
Insects do not nest in a busy door-hinge.
Around a flowering tree, there are many insects.
Even a one-inch insect has a half-inch soul.
It’s not the monkey on top that make a tree fall but it’s the work and effort of numerous small insects and ants.
The insect that eats the leaf is under the leaf.
Katydid
All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.
Bible: Leviticus 11
Locust
All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.
Bible: Leviticus 11
And a locust unto Mahomet said: ‘We are the army of the great God; we produce ninety-nine eggs; if the hundred were completed, we should consume the whole earth and all that is in it.’
Arab legend
Don’t try to get blood from a locust; God didn’t put it in there.
African
The locust flies with the wings of a falcon.
Saudi Arabian
The locust lives only a little while, but it does great damage.
Rumanian
The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.
Bible: Proverbs 30:27
The mantis seizes the locust but does not see the yellow bird behind him.
China
When the mantis hunts the locust, he forgets the shrike that’s hunting him.
China
Louse
A louse cannot lift the eiderdown.
China
A louse in the cabbage is better than no meat at all.
Proverb
Active people never have louse bites.
China
Don’t draw a sword against a louse.
China
He can see a louse as far away as China but is not aware of an elephant on his nose.
Malawi
In every little house there is a little louse.
Polish
Louse
A mean or despicable person.
Lousy
Nasty, unpleasant, inferior, worthless, bad
Lousy with money
Abundantly supplied with money
One finger alone cannot even kill a louse.
Kenyan
One thumb alone does not kill a louse.
Palestinian
To louse something up
To spoil or ruin something
Mantis
The mantis seizes the locust but does not see the yellow bird behind him.
China
When the mantis hunts the locust, he forgets the shrike that’s hunting him.
China
Mayfly
Ye May-flies, enjoy your brief existence in the bright morning of life!
Charles Dickens (in: David Copperfield)
Millipede
We keep an eye on the scorpion and the serpent, but we do not watch out for the millipede.
Sicilian
Mosquito
A cunning person’s kiss is like that of a mosquito.
Rumanian
A fig tree with figs turned out to be a ruin with mosquitoes.
Moroccan
As different as an elephant and a mosquito
Do not be like the mosquito that bites the owner of the house.
Malawi
He can swallow a camel but chokes on a mosquito.
Lebanese
In heaven you won’t hear the mosquitoes.
Finnish
The mosquito is more dangerous than the tiger
The mosquito is small — but when he sings, your ears are full of him.
Mauritius
The mosquito is without a soul, but its whizzing vexes the soul.
Turkish
Their mosquito won’t bite me.
Proverb from Cote d’Ivoire
When mosquitoes work, they bite and then they sing.
Malian
Moth
A moth will eat the finest linen.
Indonesian
He dreads a moth who has been stung by a wasp.
Albanian
Moth-eaten
Oldfashioned ; out of date (e.g. motheaten ideas)
The moth does most mischief to the finest garment.
Italian
When the moth flies around the flame, it burns itself to death.
China
Nit
Don’t be such a nit-picker!
Nitpicking = giving too much attention to unimportant details.
He’s a nitwit
He’s a stupid person. A foolish person.
Sand fly
The flight of the eagle will not stop that of the sand fly.
African
Scorpion
Because we focused on the snake, we missed the scorpion.
Egyptian
Even the hand of compassion is stung when it strokes a scorpion.
Persian
God did not give wings to scorpions.
Mexican
He who has been stung by a scorpion is afraid of its shadow.
Spanish
Relations are scorpions.
Tunisian
The scorpion is sister to the snake.
Two scorpions in a small cave are better than two sisters in the house.
Arabic
Two scorpions living in the same hole will get along better than two sisters in the same house.
Arabian
Under every stone sleeps a scorpion.
Greek
We keep an eye on the scorpion and the serpent, but we do not watch out for the millipede.
Sicilian
Silkworm
Don’t feed a silkworm that’s sleeping
Let sleeping dogs sleep
Spider
A spider spins his web strand by strand.
A spidery handwriting
Having thin long bent lines like a spider’s legs
Big flies break the spider web.
Italian
Laws, like the spider’s web, catch the fly and let the hawk go free.
Spanish
The spider and the fly can’t make a deal.
Jamaican
The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.
Bible: Proverbs 30:28
The spiders web lets the rat escape and catches the fly.
Spanish
To destroy the cobweb, destroy the spider.
Maltese
When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion.
Ethiopian
When spiders’ webs unite, they can tie up a lion.
Ethiopian
When the bee sucks, it makes honey; when the spider, poison.
Where the girls are there are no spider’s webs.
Catalonian
Words are like the spider’s web: a shelter for the clever ones and a trap for the not-so-clever.
Madagascar
You must kill the spider to get rid of the cobweb.
Maltese
Termite
A termite can do nothing to a stone but lick it.
Sudanese
Flowing water never goes bad; our door hubs never gather termites.
China
Flying termites fly into the fire
To act on impulse
Small termites collapse the roof.
African
Termites live underground.
Ethiopian
Tick
A tick
An unpleasant or worthless person
The camel carries the load, but it is the tick that complains.
Moroccan
Ticks, bedbugs and a crying child are insupportable.
Lebanese
You are like a tick in a dog’s ear.
I’m full as a tick on a fat dog!
Expression used in the US south after a full meal of chicken, fried steak, BBQ or whatever
Vinegar fly
To be as small as a vinegar fly and want to shit like an elephant
Too big for your boots
Wasp
A wasp stings the crying face.
Japanese
Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp’s nest.
Proverb
For every grape a hundred wasps.
Persian
From the same flower the bee extracts honey and the wasp gall.
He dreads a moth who has been stung by a wasp.
Albanian
Let each person drive away his own wasps.
Japanese
Sit on a wasp’s nest and say ‘God wills it!’
Lebanese
The better the fruit, the more wasps to eat it.
German
The fangs of the green snake and the sting of a wasp don’t really make poison — that is only to be found in a woman’s heart.
China
They are flies that are born of a wasp.
Indonesian
Waspish
Bad tempered
Wasp-tailed
Very slim
Women are like wasps in their anger.
English
Do not kill a single wasp; for then a hundred will come to its funeral.
Russia
Water beetle
Crime leaves a trail like a water beetle; like a snail, it leaves its silver track; like a horse-mango, it leaves its smell.
Malawi
Water insect
The big fish eat the little fish, the little fish eat the water-insects, and the water-insects eat the weeds and mud.
China
Weevil
For every bean full of weevils God supplies a blind grocer.
Arabic
Worm
Do not lean on a worm-eaten staff.
Greek
Don’t feed a silkworm that’s sleeping
Let sleeping dogs sleep
Even a worm will turn.
Proverb
Every cider apple has a worm.
Every worm has its hole.
Yiddish
God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.
Swedish
Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.
Proverb
No apple tree is immune from worms.
Russian
Quiet worms will bore a hole in the wall.
Japanese
Salt will never be worm-eaten.
Saudi Arabian
Silent worms dig holes in the walls.
Japanese
Sorrow is to the soul what the worm is to wood.
Turkish
The early bird catches the early worm.
Proverb
The early bird catches the worm.
Proverb
The early bird gets the worm.
American
The most beautiful fig may contain a worm.
Zulu
The rose has its thorn, the peach its worm.
We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow-worm.
Winston Churchill
What is good of a red apple if it has a worm.
When the earth is hot, the worm stays in the ground.
Native American
With money, a dragon, without it, a worm.
China
Worms don’t like the robin’s song.
Native American
Worms eat you up dead and worries eat you up alive.
Yiddish
This is my English collection. And here is my Dutch collection of insect proverbs and quotes.