“The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.”

— John Gay

Act II, scene ii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets." by John Gay?

John Gay 56

English poet and playwright 1685–1732

Related quotes

“Man may escape from rope and gun;
Nay, some have outlived the doctor's pill:
Who takes a woman must be undone,
That basilisk is sure to kill.
The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets,
So he that tastes woman, woman, woman,
He that tastes woman, ruin meets.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Act II, sc. viii, air 26
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

To the humble Bee
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Sweet Sometime, fly fast for me.”

Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) American musician, poet

Special Pleading 1875 (Lanier's poem on Time).

“Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Source: Chicken Soup With Rice: A Book of Months

“In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying.”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto III, stanza 11.
Marmion (1808)

“Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

To Lucasta: Going to the Wars, st. 1.
Lucasta (1649)

“In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Poems (1917), The Great Minimum
Context: In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.
Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.