“I have not skill
From such a sharp and waspish word as "No"
To pluck the sting.”
Henry Taylor (1800–1886) English playwright and poet
Act I, sc. 1.
Philip van Artevelde (1834)
“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.”
Source: The Taming of the Shrew
Last update Sept. 28, 2023. History
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William Shakespeare699
English playwright and poet 1564–1616Related quotes
Karl Shapiro (1913–2000) Poet, essayist
"Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz
Context: Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail
And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing
Caught my eye then, a gossamer so frail And exquisite, I saw in it a thing
That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote.
It hung upon my finger like a sting.
“The world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings.
Grasp it firmly, it stings not.”
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) English statesman and poet
Part iii, canto ii. Quoted by Walt Whitman in Roaming in Thought.
Lucile (1860)
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) English poet and songwriter
"Per Pacem ad Lucem".
A Chaplet of Verses (1862)
“You paint stinging-nettles, and I prefer roses.”
Narcisse Virgilio Díaz (1807–1876) French painter
Diaz, quoted by Muther; cited in The Barbizon Painters – being the story of the Men of thirty, Arthur Hoeber – associate of the National Academy of Design; publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1915, p. 138
according to Richard Muther this was the characteristic expression which Diaz used to Millet
Quotes of Diaz
“Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear.”
Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist
Lyrics, Make Yourself (1999)
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl
"A Complaint by Night of the Lover Not Beloved", line 11.
