Opus Posthumous (1955), Adagia
“The highest cloth is made from the excrement of worms, which is silk.”
“Let me be dressed fine as I will,
Flies, worms, and flowers, exceed me still.”
Song 22: "Against Pride in Clothes".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī - Book of Faith and Infidelity, vol.3, p. 202 & vol.2, p. 316
“Transferring the receptor from a social worm to a solitary worm makes the solitary worm social.”
In Search of Memory (2006)
Context: Cori Bargmann... has studied two variants of C. elegans... The only difference between the two is one amino acid in an otherwise shared receptor protein. Transferring the receptor from a social worm to a solitary worm makes the solitary worm social.
“You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.”
"omlets are not made without breaking eggs" first appeared in English in 1796. It is from the French, "on ne saurait faire d'omelette sans casser des œufs" (1742 and earlier), attributed to François de Charette.
In the context of the Soviet Union, Time magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,753448-2,00.html attributes it to Lazar Kaganovich.
Walter Duranty associated with Stalin in the New York Times.
"But – to put it brutally – you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and the Bolshevist leaders are just as indifferent to the casualties that may be involved in their drive toward socialization as any General during the World War who ordered a costly attack in order to show his superiors that he and his division possessed the proper soldierly spirit. In fact, the Bolsheviki are more indifferent because they are animated by fanatical conviction."
Walter Duranty, Special Cable to The New York Times http://www.artukraine.com/old/famineart/duranty.htm, The New York Times, New York, March 31, 1933, page 13.
Misattributed
Variant: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
“906. Silkes and satins put out the fire in the chimney.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
Page 315; "Alonzo the Brave, and Fair Imogine", line 59.
The Monk (1796)
“The prose writer drags meaning along with a rope, the poet makes it stand out and hit you.”
Speculations (Essays, 1924)
Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 75
Tipu Sultan's address on 1788, Quoted in The Sword of Tipu Sultan, by Bhagwan S Gidwani https://books.google.com.sa/books?id=EimPBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PT262#v=onepage&q&f=true
From Tipu Sultan's Decrees
