Entomology Quotes (9 quotes)
Lepidoptera are for children to play with, pretty to look at, so some think. Give me the Coleoptera, and the kings of the Coleoptera are the beetles! Lepidoptera and Neuroptera for little folks; Coleoptera for men, sir!
In 'The Poet at the Breakfast Table: III', The Atlantic Monthly (Mar 1872), 29, 344.
Tantus amor florum, et generandi gloria mellis.
Ardent is their love of flowers, and such their glory in making honey.
Ardent is their love of flowers, and such their glory in making honey.
— Virgil
About bees. As given in Latin and in The Works of Virgil: Translated Into English Prose (1821), Vol. 1, 160.
A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.
I mark’d, where on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.
In 'A Noiseless Patient Spider', Broadway: A London Magazine (1868), reprinted in Leaves of Grass (5th ed., 1871, 1888), 343.
Even bees, the little alms-men of spring bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.
From poem, 'Isabella', collected in The Poetical Works of John Keats (1885), 186.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
In Divine and Moral Songs for Children (1869),
Human beings can easily destroy every elephant on earth, but we are helpless against the mosquito.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 80.
If Darwin were alive today the insect world would delight and astound him with its impressive verification of his theories of the survival of the fittest. Under the stress of intensive chemical spraying the weaker members of the insect populations are being weeded out… . Only the strong and fit remain to defy our efforts to control them.
In Silent Spring (1952, 1962), 263.
The most intensely social animals can only adapt to group behavior. Bees and ants have no option when isolated, except to die. There is really no such creature as a single individual; he has no more life of his own than a cast off cell marooned from the surface of your skin.
In The Lives of a Cell (1974), 63.
Ye ugly, creepin’, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner!
How dare ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner
On some poor body.
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner!
How dare ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner
On some poor body.
From poem, 'To A Louse: On Seeing One On A Lady’s Bonnet, At Church' (1786).
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
