James Thurber? Jane Austen? Charles Caleb Colton? Anonymous?
Dear Quote Investigator: Many are familiar with the following adage which encourages aggregation:
There is safety in numbers.
Yet, I recall reading a short acerbic tale that presented an inverted moral of this type:
There is no safety in numbers, or anything else.
Would you please help me to find this story?
Quote Investigator: In 1939 “The New Yorker” published a set of four short tales by humorist James Thurber under the title “Fables for Our Time – II”. The first story was about a “fairly intelligent fly” who avoided being caught in an empty spider web. Unfortunately, when the fly later encountered a large group of flies together on a surface he decided to settle down among them. A bee warned the fly that the group were trapped on flypaper. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:[1]1939 February 4, The New Yorker, Fables for Our Time – II by James Thurber, Start Page 20, Quote Page 20, Column 1, F. R. Publishing Corporation, New York. (Online New Yorker archive of digital … Continue reading
“Don’t be silly,” said the fly, “they’re dancing.” So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies.
Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Continue reading There Is No Safety In Numbers, Or In Anything Else
References
↑1 | 1939 February 4, The New Yorker, Fables for Our Time – II by James Thurber, Start Page 20, Quote Page 20, Column 1, F. R. Publishing Corporation, New York. (Online New Yorker archive of digital scans) |
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