Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.
“215. Into a mouth shut flies flie not.”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Variant of the Sumerian proverb: Flies enter an open mouth. http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/proverbs/t.6.1.03.html <br class="br">Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“A drop of honey can catch more flies than a gallon of gall.”
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 143 (in 1998 edition)
“Laws are like Cobwebs which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Context: Laws are like Cobwebs which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. But in Oratory the greatest Art is to hide Art.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer
Winter, An Ode. The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1787), p. 355
African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 52.
“When mouths close, it’s because there’s something important to be said.”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
Source: The Witch Of Portobello
“When the star dies, its eye closes; tired of watching, it flies back to its first bright dream.”
Dejan Stojanovic book Circling: 1978-1987
“The Star and the Eye,” p. 46
Circling: 1978-1987 (1993), Sequence: “A Grain”
“The greatest sermons are the ones given with a closed mouth and an open heart.”
Steve Maraboli (1975)
Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 135
