Small Insects Quotes & Sayings

. . . they beheld its atlas-familiar snowy poles, its blue land-locked seas, its green forests and yellow plains and wide red deserts. They looked down upon Mount Olympus, so tall her summit rose about the highest snow, and the bustling lands of the Grand Valley, thick with cities and towns. As their earth loomed closer, they saw the glittering moonring and here the oracle-eye rested, filling the room with incomprehensible drifting shapes. Some were so huge they took minutes to cross the room, some were tiny and tumbling, some were busy as insects, flitting through the spectators intent upon their small errands; all of them bore the name ROTECH somewhere upon them. — Ian McDonald

You realize how small you are in the grand scheme of things. We're not really the rulers of this planet, we're just tenants, and it's the small stuff, the bacteria and insects and the plant matter that really runs it all. Even the big stuff, the nasty, scary stuff, it's all pretty small in the grand scheme of things, isn't it? — Wildbow

The positive evidence for Darwinism is confined to small-scale evolutionary changes like insects developing insecticide resistance ... Evidence like that for insecticide resistance confirms the Darwinian selection mechanism for small-scale changes, but hardly warrants the grand extrapolation that Darwinists want. It is a huge leap going from insects developing insecticide resistance via the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection and random variation to the very emergence of insects in the first place by that same mechanism. — William A. Dembski

They have not yet evolved into an understanding of their individual selves as merely parts of a whole, first of all humanity, their own species, let alone achieving a conscious knowledge of humanity as part of Nature; plants, animals, birds, insects reptiles, and all these together making a small chord in the Cosmic Harmony — Doris Lessing

In the warmer months of the year one or other of those nocturnal insects quite often strays indoors from the small garden behind my house. When I get up early in the morning, I find them clinging to the wall, motionless. I believe, said Austerlitz, they know they have lost their way, since if you do not put them out again carefully they will stay where they are, never moving, until the last breath is out of their bodies, and indeed they will remain in the place where they came to grief even after death, held fast by the tiny claws that stiffened in their last agony, until a draft of air detaches them and blows them into a dusty corner. Sometimes, seeing one of these moths that have met their end in my house, I wonder what kind of fear and pain they feel while they are lost. — W.G. Sebald

The wind in the grasses died; the campfire far beyond their tent flickered, the people around it huddling closer together as the nighttime insects went silent and the small, furred creatures of the plains scampered into their burrows. Marion either didn't notice the surge of his dark power, — Sarah J. Maas

No one knows, incidentally, why Australia's spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that everyone gives them lots of space. — Bill Bryson

I walked far down a dirt side road and into a farmer's field - some sort of cereal that was chest high and corn green and rustled as its blades inflicted small paper burns on my skin as I walked through them. And in that field, when the appointed hour, minute, and second of the darkness came, I lay myself down on the ground, surrounded by the tall pithy grain stalks and the faint sound of insects, and held my breath, there experiencing a mood that I have never really been able to shake completely - a mood of darkness and inevitability and facination - a mood that surely must have been held by most young people since the dawn of time as they have crooked their necks, stared at the heavens, and watched their sky go out. — Douglas Coupland

Some objects seem to disappear immediately while others never want to leave. Here is a small black plastic gizmo with a serious demeanor that turns up regularly, like a politician at public functions. It seems to be an "integral part," a kind of switch with screw holes so that it can be attached to something larger. Nobody knows what. This thing's use has been forgotten but it looks so important that no one is willing to throw it in the trash. It survives by bluff, like certain insects that escape being eaten because of their formidable appearance. — Louis Jenkins

With that, everything was suddenly thrown into greater relief, a kind of super three-dimensionality that enhanced the presence and realness of everything in my perceptual field, from the small insects close to my face all the way to the galaxy of stars behind the moon. I was looking at everything from the larger perspective of the entire Universe. — James Redfield

The environment was full of birds and insects, rodents and small reptiles - decorative in appearance, but also satisfying a more abstract aesthetic: softening the harsh radial symmetry of the lone observer; anchoring the simulation by perceiving it from a multitude of view-points. Ontological guy lines. — Greg Egan

Summer is a prodigal of joy. The grass Swarms with delighted insects as I pass, And crowds of grasshoppers at every stride Jump out all ways with happiness their guide; And from my brushing feet moths flit away In safer places to pursue their play. In crowds they start. I marvel, well I may, To see such worlds of insects in the way, And more to see each thing, however small, Sharing joy's bounty that belongs to all. And here I gather, by the world forgot, Harvests of comfort from their happy mood, Feeling God's blessing dwells in every spot And nothing lives but owes him gratitude. — John Clare

However, as words become particularized, and as men begin - in however small a way - to use them in personal, arbitrary ways, so their transformation into art begins. It was words of this kind that, descending on me like a swarm of winged insects, seized on my individuality and sought to shut me up within it. Nevertheless, despite the enemy's depredations upon my person, I turned their universality - at once a weapon and a weakness - back on them, and to some extent succeeded in using words to universalize to my own individuality. — Yukio Mishima

Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss. If you peer beneath the bits and pieces of the moss, you'll see toads, small insects, a whole host of life that prospers in that miniature environment. A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city. — Sylvia Earle

Therapies administered included but were not limited to: turning things off, then on again; picking them up a couple of inches and then dropping them; turning off nonessential appliances in this and other rooms; removing lids and wiggling circuit boards; extracting small contaminants, such as insects and their egg cases, with nonconducting chopsticks; cable-wiggling; incense-burning; putting folded-up pieces of paper beneath table legs; drinking tea and sulking; invoking unseen powers; sending runners to other rooms, buildings, or precincts with exquisitely calligraphed notes and waiting for them to come back carrying spare parts in dusty, yellowed cardboard boxes; and a similarly diverse suite of troubleshooting techniques in the realm of software. — Neal Stephenson

Most people do not know this, but hummingbirds also feed on small insects. Among the many insects that hummingbirds feed on, they especially like spiders, gnats, aphids, caterpillars, flies and mosquitoes. They are fairly aggressive hunters and insects can make up to 1/4 of their daily diet! — Susan G. Charles

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better. — Mary Oliver

In a broader sense, the rhythms of nature, large and small - the sounds of wind and water, the sounds of birds and insects - must inevitably find their analogues in music. — George Crumb

Things without defense: insects, kittens, small boys. — Paul Fussell

Many caterpillars defend themselves not by striking fear in the hearts of their predators, but rather indifference. The large maple spanworm looks like a twig; the viceroy caterpillar looks like a bird dropping. This is not as exciting as looking like an anaconda, but when you are very small, and wingless, one of your main goals in life is to not be exciting. And speaking of unexciting - I think it is safe to say that woolly bears have one of the least advanced defense mechanisms among insects, although theirs is the reaction with which I most strongly identify: when distressed, the woolly bear rolls up into a ball. — Amy Leach

What are we doing?" I asked, feeling restless. "Taking comfort." That made me smile, so I peered up at him. "You're taking comfort in me?" "Yes." My smile grew and I closed my eyes, giving myself over to the moment. Gradually, I heard a symphony of sounds rise around us. Wind played through the grass, rustled the small but plentiful leaves of a nearby lonely oak. Crickets and other insects chirped and hummed. I felt the beat of Jethro's heart in his fingertips and where I gripped his wrists. My heart slowed until it matched the rhythm of his. My restlessness eased until it faded away, eclipsed by the stillness, the comfort of being close, yet barely touching. And I took comfort in him. — Penny Reid

The secret of success is concentrating interest in life, interest in sports and good times, interest in your studies, interest in your fellow students, interest in the small things of nature, insects, birds, flowers, leaves, etc. In other words to be fully awake to everything about you & the more you learn the more you can appreciate & get a full measure of joy & happiness out of life. — LeRoy Pollock

The human race is one of the few creatures whom can cry tears. If you look at us we are running around like small insects - all submerged in our own important errands. Everyone blind of whats going on underneath their own noses. We can be compassionate as well as evil. We can love and we can destroy. I will always wonder how the same creature can do both. Oxymoron." Everything Changes, Always. — Adrian Sandvaer

I don't care how small or big they are, insects freak me out. — Alexander Wang

The colours of insects and many smaller animals contribute to conceal them from the larger ones which prey upon them. Caterpillars which feed on leaves are generally green; and earth-worms the colour of the earth which they inhabit; butter-flies, which frequent flowers, are coloured like them; small birds which frequent hedges have greenish backs like the leaves, and light-coloured bellies like the sky, and are hence less visible to the hawk who passes under them or over them. — Erasmus Darwin

For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he goes through a phase of intense sexiness. — George Orwell

Know the world from end to end is a mirror;
in each atom a hundred suns are concealed.
If you pierce the heart of a single drop of water,
from it will flow a hundred clear oceans;
if you look intently at each speck of dust,
in it you will see a thousand beings.
A gnat in its limbs is like an elephant;
in name a drop of water resembles the Nile.
In the heart of a barleycorn is stored a hundred harvests.
Within a millet-seed a world exists.
In an insects wing is an ocean of life.
A heaven is concealed in the pupil of an eye.
The core at the center of the heart is small,
yet the Lord of both worlds will enter there. — Mahmud Shabistari

Politics /n/: from 'poly ticks', short for 'many small bloodsucking insects'. — Henry Spencer

An eagle soaring above a sheer cliff, where I suppose its nest is, makes another striking show of life, and helps to bring to mind the other people of the so-called solitude - deer in the forest caring for their young; the strong, well-clad, well-fed bears; the lively throng of squirrels; the blessed birds, great and small, stirring and sweetening the groves; and the clouds of happy insects filling the sky with joyous hum as part and parcel of the down-pouring sunshine. — John Muir

It is evening. The moon is small, and new. There are stars, and a stream's sound, and I can hear the wings of insects, in the dark. I think what gifts we are given, such gifts
every day. — Susan Fletcher

Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the grass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their tiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp, to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh shrill noises. The pasture was flooded with light; every clump of ironweed and snow-on-the-mountain threw a long shadow, and the golden light seemed to be rippling through the curly grass like the tide racing in. — Willa Cather

His men had begun gathering the wounded or stunned into a small group some distance back up the slope. Here and there an animal or human stirred, but not many. There were few cries of pain or fear now. Mostly, it was eerily quiet. Even the insects had ceased their music. — Derek Donais

Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi' glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dew falls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun. — John Clare

The Bull Ants love to eat other small insects, as well as seeds, sweet nectar and fruit. — Leanne Annett

Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers.
And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see. — James Salter

Insects, birds, and small game all chattered, yet for a while, they sat in peace. In an odd way, connection and understanding thrived on the non-words. The forest spoke like God's voice, alive and real, leaving healing and hope in the wake of silence. — Michelle Griep

How can all the small insects simultaneously know, without a brain, without knowing anything, that today they should visit this meadow, tomorrow that one? It's a question of knowing without knowing, and wanting without wanting. If you want something too intensely, things fall apart in your hands. You start to doubt everything. As soon as you let go, everything comes to you. Then you know, without knowing. — Erik Fosnes Hansen

The woods were full of sound: the stream between the rocks, the wind among the needles of the pine branches, the chitter of insects and the cries of small arboreal mammals, as well as the birdsong; and from time to time a stronger gust of wind would make one of the branches of a cedar or a fir move against another and groan like a cello. It — Philip Pullman

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis