A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the insignificance of minor irritations in the face of greater strength or stature.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson emphasizes that small annoyances or challenges, represented by the fly, may provoke a reaction from those who are much more significant or powerful, symbolized by the stately horse. Despite the momentary discomfort caused by the fly, it does not change the essential nature or status of the horse, illustrating that true strength remains untainted by trivial adversities.
In practice
In a speech about handling criticism, one might use this quote to illustrate that minor criticisms don't define a person's worth.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Yes. We both have a bad feeling. Tonight we shall take our bad feelings and share them, and face them. We shall mourn. We shall drain the bitter dregs of mortality. Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled, but halved. No man is an island.
It is very significant that some of the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet
Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.
The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.
Despots prefer the friendship of the dog, who, unjustly mistreated and debased, still loves and serves the man who wronged him.
Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.
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