THE ANT FARM'S QUOTES RELATED TO ANTS

Last Updated: 2-16-2021

Notes: Newest quotes are on the top. Some of the quotes might be offensive. Thanks to Jack Crow and this Web page for sharing a lot of quotes. Quotesgram has a quotes randomizer with even more.


"Being so weak and shy is what interested me in ants in the first place. This potion helps me unlock those latent and natural abilities in myself which coincide with those of the ants. Ominoctra Formicidae. They're everything I'm not: social, well organized, purposeful and strong." --Formicida in Wonder Woman S3 E6

"... and don't let him look at my ant farm..." --Roger in American Dad S14 E20

"It sounds like a bird, but it's a f**kin' ant!" --Kong: Skull Island movie's Hank Marlow

"In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants." --Noam Chomsky

"Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans." --E. O. Wilson

"I never kill insects. If I see ants or spiders in the room, I pick them up and take them outside. Karma is everything." --Holly Valance

"I really knew I wanted to be Adam, because Adam was the first man. Ant I chose because, if there's a nuclear explosion, the ants will survive." --Adam Ant

"I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began." --Willard Wigan

"If a mosquito has a soul, it is mostly evil. So I don't have too many qualms about putting a mosquito out of its misery. I'm a little more respectful of ants." --Douglas Hofstadter

"Growing up, others girls wanted to dance and help their mums with the cooking. I liked to play soccer with the boys. Or I'd be off on my own, tilting mirrors towards the sun in order to burn armies of ants. That was my idea of fun." --Ali Larter

"When I look up and see the sun shining on the patch of white clouds up in the blue, I begin to think how it would feel to be up somewhere above it winging swiftly thought the clear air, watching the earth below, and the men on it, no bigger than ants." --Eddie Rickenbacker

"Ants are good citizens, they place group interests first." --Clarence Day

"Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they've had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years." --E. O. Wilson

"I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath." --David Lynch

"Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers." --E. O. Wilson

"I grew up in airports and on air bases. I know what flying and airports can be. And most airports make me feel like we're about three per cent better than ants. Especially U.S. airports. They're zoos. All civility is gone." --Douglas Coupland

"Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed." --John Galsworthy

"But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world." --E. O. Wilson

"As a kid, I lived in a fantasy world. I used to believe ants could talk. Not once did they say thank you." --Willard Wigan

"I really believe I've been a good person. Not perfect - forget about perfect - but just learning by what I was taught and living by my own values. I might have stepped on a few ants - and a few other things as well - but I've never hurt anybody." --Kiri Te Kanawa

"People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants." --Bela Lugosi

"Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel." --Karel Capek

"I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants." --A. S. Byatt

"Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them." --E. O. Wilson

"In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems." --E. O. Wilson

"We're all the same. We all want the same thing in life. Everybody going around like ants and we all want the same thing. And it's not one queen. It's not one queen with the wings." --Andrea Corr

"I am always shocked that there are still a handful of defenders of the dubious practice of abstinence, surely the worst idea since chocolate-covered ants." --Dick Cavett

"The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans." --E. O. Wilson

"It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits." --Lewis Thomas

"I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way." --Lewis Thomas

"I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it." --E. O. Wilson

"Ants can live together in solidarity and forget themselves in the community. In a normative capitalist society, everyone is an egoist. In the ants' civilization, you are part of the group; you don't live for yourself alone." --Bernard Werber

"I remember being fascinated by ants and wasps and other bugs when I was a kid. I'd set out a Coke can and stand back 20 feet and use my telescope to watch wasps land on it." --Paul McEuen

"I ate ants. They weren't that bad." --Leslie Hope

"The fact that we can't easily foresee clues that would betray an intelligence a million millennia farther down the road suggests that we're like ants trying to discover humans. Ask yourself: Would ants ever recognize houses, cars, or fire hydrants as the work of advanced biology?" --Seth Shostak

"We're all like little ants who scurry around with the materials that are at hand right now. Each generation finds new materials. Its just evolution, isn't it?" --Beth Orton

"People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively." --P. J. O'Rourke

"Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them." --E. O. Wilson

"I spent my first 4 years living in the tiny town of Snug, by the sea near Hobart. Curious about animals, I would pick up ants in our backyard and jellyfish on the beach." --Elizabeth Blackburn

"In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants." --Noam Chomsky

"... then bury them up to their necks in a huge mound of fire ants..." "... She's like an ant, man..." --Breaking Bad S2E7 (Peekaboo)

"... I should hope not. My question is do any of these little piss ants know where you keep 'em?" --Henry R. "Hank" Schrader from Breaking Bad S1E6 (Crazy Handful of Nothin')

"... Alice's honesty felt like fire ants on his skin..." --Dilbert's 7/12/2015 comic strip's panel #4

"Frankly ants. I don't give a dam." --Stan Smith in American Dad S12E12 (The Shrink)

"God is a kid with an ant farm..." --Constantine movie.

"Wow, I haven't felt this powerful since I got to decide which ant lives and which ant dies. You shall battle to the death, and the winner will be given his freedom. Why are you looking at me like that?" --Peter; "Peter, would you like a glass of...? Oh, my God! I told you not to play God with those ants!" --Lois in Family Guy S12E16.

"I got an ant farm; them fellas didn't grow sh*t." --Mitch Hedberg

"Ants! Why don't we all line up like a [bleeped] bunch of ants! It's the most beautiful part of the day!" --Robert Eroica Dupea in Five Easy Pieces movie. YouTube has this scene (has cussings) from VideoSift.

"A 'practical joker' deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest." --Lazarus Long

"It was not until the ant and Veig had passed each other that Niall realized that he had been reading the ant's mind. It was a sensation like actually being the ant, as if he had momentarily taken possession of its body. And while he had been inside the ant's body, he had also become aware of all the other ants in the nest. It was a bewildering feeling, as if his mind had shattered into thousands of fragments, yet each fragment remained a coherent part of the whole." --Colin Wilson, Spider World: The Desert (1987), p. 57

"For example, the tiny ant, a creature of great industry, drags with its mouth whatever it can, and adds it to the heap which she is piling up, not unaware nor careless of the future." --Horace, Satires, Book I, I, 33.

"While an ant was wandering under the shade of the tree of Phæton, a drop of amber enveloped the tiny insect; thus she, who in life was disregarded, became precious by death." --Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book VI, Epistle 15.

"Let him who boasts the knowledge of actually existing things, first tell us of the nature of the ant." --Saint Basil quote from his letter XVI written against Eunomius the Heretic. Thanks ABM.

"I made my list for my birthday." --Christopher. "Yeah, what'd you put on there? - A basketball or an ant farm." and "This could be an ant farm. This could be a microscope or anything." --Chris from The Pursuit of Happyness movie.

"I think the ants are waking up -- they need to start farming so..." --Erin from The Office (U.S.) S7E18 (Todd Packer).

"Stan, are you OK?" --Francine; "Yeah. Hey, you look like ants from down here. Wait, wait, those are just ants on my eyes..." --Stan from American Dad's S3E15 (Stanny Slickers 2: The Legend of Ollie's Gold) deleted scene

Captain Marvel: Shazam. Billy Batson: Now put her down. Black Adam: See? Like an ant. --Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam.

"... The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing..." --Jon Stewart from Rally to Restore Sanity on 10/30/2010.

"Why would you want a glow in the dark ant farm?" --Leonard; "They do some of their best work at night." --Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory S4E4 (The Hot Troll Deviation).

"Ants never sleep." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet

"... Our latest evil plan and create an army of giant ants to take over the galaxy..." --Dark Helmet from Spaceballs: The Animated Series (S1 E3).

"We now go live to Ollie Williams in Channel 5 traffic chopper. What's scene?" --Tom Tucker. "Everyone looks like ants!" "That is probably because you're up so high." from Family Guy.

"Yeah, what's left of it. I was in the militia -- national guard... That's good! Wasn't any war any more than there's war between men and ants." --stranger; "And we're eat-able ants. I found that out... What will they do with us?" --Pierson from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

"This isn't a war. It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants." --artilleryman from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

"... Something wrong with the gun," he said. "But what if there is? They'll get it right again. And even if there's a delay, how can it alter the end? It's just men and ants. There's the ants builds their cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the way, and then they go out of the way. That's what we are now -- just ants. Only --" "Yes," "We're eatable ants..." --H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

"... Here's intelligent things, and it seems they want us for food. First, they'll smash us up -- ships, machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation. All that will go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we're not. It's all too bulky to stop. That's the first certainty." Eh? ..." --H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

"... Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennae bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. 'Stop.' 'Go.' 'Walk here.' 'Drive there.' All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. 'Here's your change.' 'Paper or plastic?' 'Credit or debit?"' 'You want ketchup with that' I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?" "Yeah... yeah I know. I don't want to be an ant either. Thanks for kinda, like, josteling me there... I've been kinda on zombie autopilot lately. I don't feel like an ant in my head, but I guess I probably look like one..." --Waking Life movie

"Look at them, fighting like ants. The fate's waiting them." --Kane in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

"Not all ants use violence to dominate their world, some use more subtle methods..." --E.O. Wilson on NOVA

"What is this? A center for ants?!" "...What?" "How can we be expected to teach children to learn how read, if they can't even fit inside the building?" "Derek, it's just a--" "I don't want to hear your excuses! The center has to be at least... three times bigger than this!" "...He's absolutely right!" --Zoolander movie

... "Like me with the anthill in my backyard. I spent days watching the ants, trying to figure out which ones were good, and which ones were bad, but they all just looked like ants, so I started smiting all of them." "Well that's not --" "I was smiting them with the garden hose, and with lighter fluid, and with the lawnmower, and to be perfectly honest, I think I went a little crazy with the shovel. Those ants could have been praying to me all day, I wouldn't have heard them." "There was nothing they could do about it." "But, I don't think --" "Really, it's the same with us. There's nothing we can do about anything either, so why worry about it? Hey, this is making me feel better." "Well, that's good, but --" "I guess all we can do is live our lives with as much kindness and decency as possible, and try not to dwell on God standing over us with a giant shovel." ... --Dewey and Teacher in Day Care episode from Malcolm in the Middle

"If I find one beer can in that car, it's over!" --Red; "And no donuts either! Ants!" --Kitty from That '70s Show pilot

"A coconut shell full of water is a(n) sea/ocean to an ant." --Indians

"An ant can do more than an ox that is lying down." --unknown

"An ant hole may collapse an embankment." --Japanese

"An ant is over six feet tall when measured by its own foot-rule." --Slovenian

"An ant may work its (her) heart out, but it (she) can't make money." --unknown

"An ant's nest could bring down a hill." --Japanese

"Ants can attack with a grain of rice." --a Malagasy Proverb

"Ants die in sugar." --Malawi

"Ants follow fat." --unknown

"Ants live safely till they have gotten wings." --unknown

"Ants never lend, ants never borrow." --unknown

"Any spoke will lead the ant to the hub." --unknown

"Better (to be) an ant's head than a lion's tail." --Armenian and Maltese

"Don't even step on an ant." --Greek

"Even an ant can hurt an elephant." --Proverb

"Even the ant has his (her) bite." --Turkish

"Even the sharpest ear cannot hear an ant singing." --Sudanese

"Even the wishes of a small ant reach heaven." --Japanese

"Every ruler sleeps on an anthill." --Afghani

"For an ant to have wings would be his (her) undoing." --Iranian

"He who cannot pick up an ant, and wants to pick up an elephant will some day see his folly." --African

"He who runs from the white ant may stumble upon the stinging ant." --Nigeria

"He who storms in like a whirlwind returns like an ant." --Borneo

"If they are offered winged ants, people will eat them." --African

"In a battle between elephants, the ants get squashed." --Thailand

"In an ant colony, dew is a flood." --Afghan

"In every enemy that is an ant, behold an elephant." --Turkish

"Many ants kill a camel." --Turkish

"She's got ants in her pants." --unknown

"Stir up an ant's nest." --unknown

"The ambitious one makes friends with the elephant, then tramples upon the ant." --Indian

"The constant creeping of ants will wear away the stone." --unknown

"The little ant at its hole is full of courage." --African

"The tiny ant dares to enter the lion's ear." --Armenian

"The world flatters the elephant and tramples on the ant." --Indian

"Though your enemy is the size of an ant, look upon him as an elephant." --Danish

"To the ant, a few drops of dew is a flood." --Iranian

"When the ant grows wings it is about to die." --Arabic

"When the water rises the fish eat the ants, when the water falls the ants eat the fish." --Thai Proverb

"Where the sugar is, there will the ant be also." --Philippines

"Hey dad, look. I put honey on my back, and now the ants are carrying me home." --Chris from Family Guy

"Ants can lift up to 50 times their own weight. And your monitor is missing. Time to bring out the bugspray." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes (2/28/2003)

"It doesn't matter what your D&D manual says, you did not get 5 experience points for killing the giant ant in your kitchen." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes (7/30/2004)

"... Ooh, we haven't done that in a long time. I love picnics. I'll bring my ant jar." --The Berenstain Bears (unknown episode)

"For me, the smartest animal's a pigeon." "Huh?" "1,000 cars on the turnpike, they find mine." "My vote goes to the ants." "How do you figure that?" "Know those farms they build? They build those things without plans. To ants! For all you do, this one's for you." --Cheers (unknown episode)

"I love ants. Do they have uncles? Ha Ha!" --Elmo from Sesame Street (unknown episode)

"... Let's go pour these (peas from a can) onto an anthill I've found." --Strong Bad (Witness the Cheatar! episode)

[Laser pulsing] "Bah. It's as easy as crushing an ant! You know, the..." [grunting] "Wh-wh-whoa! Hey, take my wallet and leave me alone!" --Mr. Burns from The Simpsons (Fraudcast News; FABF16/FABF18 episode)

"..., you ready for a little dumpster diving?" "Um... okay." "You know I don't mind getting my hands dirty." "I mean, maggots, wet trash, I am the first one in." "Okay, so what are you waiting for?" "Ants." (Chuckles) "Ants?" "Yes, I have got a problem with ants." "They are sneaky, and they are mobile, and when they get on you, even if you get them off..." "Okay, Calleigh, chill." --CSI: Miami (Wannabe episode; #218)

"What is that?" "Some kind of insect?" "It's an ant." "Girl, you needed an exterminator. She had ants on her face." "Well, these aren't your garden-variety dumpster ants." "And they aren't ... to decomp." "Why are they in her stomach?" "La hormiga culona--leaf cutter ants. It's a Colombian dish." "Are you saying that people eat them?" "Fried." "Okay, so we are looking for a club that serves fried ants." --CSI: Miami (Wannabe episode; #218)

"Ah. Those club kids did eat those ants up like popcorn." --CSI: Miami (Wannabe episode; #218)

"Although you're a little ant, I won't bully you." --Sai Yuk from The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk movie (English subtitles)

"Are you slower than an ant?" --Sai Yuk from The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk movie (English subtitles)

"The ant has made him(her!)self illustrious; Through constant industry industrious.; So what? Would you be calm and placid; If you were full of formic acid?" --Ogden Nash (The Ant)

"Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents," said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor. "These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements." --Harry Potter book. Thanks Zanti Agent.

"... human societies send their young men to war, weaver-ant societies send their old ladies." --Wilson and Holldobler. Thanks Chente28hn.

"As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron, orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved, ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope." --The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (book). Thanks Otis (remove ANT to e-mail).

"What is it going to be like in eternity with God? Frankly, the capacity of our brains cannot handle the wonder and greatness of heaven. It would be like trying to describe the Internet to an ant." --Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life. Thanks Ulic.

"Busy as ants hurrying orcs were digging, digging lines of deep trenches in a huge ring, just out of bowshot from the walls;" --The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (book). Thanks Otis (remove ANT to e-mail).

"God is a mean kid sitting on an ant-hill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant." --Bruce Nolan (Bruce Almighty movie)

"I got worms! That's what we're going to call it. We're going to specialize in selling worm farms. You know like ant farms. What's the matter, a little tense about the flight?" --Lloyd Christmas (Dumb and Dumber movie)

"They are like the ant... They start one way and turn around and go the other way... They look all the time at the ground and never see the sky." --Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, Amazonian Indian (Newsweek 117(17):5, 1991)

"You're a squawking parrot... you're an ant." --Marlon Brando on Saturday Night Live's Celebrity Jeopardy (1996). Source.

[stands next to an ant mounted on the wall] "This is a really big ant I found." [stands next to three little white dots mounted on the wall] And these are its eggs. --Insane Idiot from a Saturday Night Live skit (1992). Source.

"... I'd wait for a hot Texas day, see? Tie him to a stake, get an ant trail going. You know, Texas red ants, inch long! Just love to bite into human flesh, catch what I'm saying here? See, they're eating him alive, nice and slow like..." --Ross Perot in Saturday Night Live's Debate '92 skit. Source.

Karl-Heinz: "The next video was sent in by Geurgud Gardner from Baden-baden. Here they have come across the body of a tramp, which in itself is not so disturbing. Until it is turned over to reveal... ANTS! ANTS! ANTS!" Dieter: "Now that's an ant farm of a different color." --Saturday Night Live's Sprockets skit. Source.

Cameron Hormel: Are you familiar with ants? Applicant: I've seen 'em in the movies! Cameron Hormel: Would you be willing to let ants bite you? Applicant: Yep! Yep, I think I could do that! Cameron Hormel: Mmm-hmm. So, how many ants would you let bite you? Applicant: [thinking] As many as it takes, sir! --Saturday Night Live's Tales of Fraud and Malfeasance in Railroad Hiring Practices skit (1994). Source.

"Ant colonies are remarkably similar to cities. No one choreographs the action, not even the queen ant, but ant behavior is controlled by swarm logic--put 10,000 dumb ants together, and they become smart. They will calculate the shortest routes to food supplies sniffing out pheromone signals from other ants and Johnson says people do the same thing in cities using low-level interactions of people on the street." --Alex Cukan, "Stories of modern science," United Press International, October 8, 2001

"Since the world began, we have never exterminated. We probably shall never exterminate as much as one single insect species. If there was ever an example of an insect we cannot destroy, the fire ant is it." --an entomologist quote mentioned by Leonard Nimoy on In The Search Of: Deadly Ants (1978)

"He was a musical ant. He was there for the song." --Rick (Rick Moranis episode from The Muppets)

"Whoops, there goes another ambulance ant." --Seymour and Pepe (Rick Moranis episode from The Muppets)

"The Hunam Tiger ant has been known to consume an entire meal before the picnic guest arrive." --12th century Tang Dynasty proverb.

"Maybe it's like an ant hive..." "Bees man, bees have hives." "You know what I mean. It's like one female that runs the whole show." "Yes, the queen." "Yeah the mamma. She is bad*ss, man. I mean big." "These things ain't ants estupido." "I know that." --Aliens movie

"We're all ants. I'm a glittery little ant." --Alanis Morissette

"Oh, good morning, my little worker ants! That's just a figure of speech; I would NEVER compare you to insects. At least not after that sensitivity training seminar those maggots at the network forced me to attend!" --Kay, Murphy Brown

"The greatest enemies of ants are other ants, just as the greatest enemies of men are other men." --Auguste Forel. Thanks Kris Killer.

"When the ants unite their mouths, they can carry an elephant." --Mossian Proverb

"Left right left right we're army ants. We swarm we fight. We have no home. We roam. We race. You're lucky if we miss your place." --Douglas Florian (The Army Ants Poem)

"Above ground I shall be food for kites; below I shall be food for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the other?" --Juang-zu (4th Century B.C.)

"We have to break with what must be broken with once and for all... and we have to take the suffering upon ourselves... Freedom and power--power above all. Power over all the tumbling vermin and over all the ant-hill!" --Fedor Dostoevsky

"The shadows now so long do grow,... That brambles like tall cedars show,... Molehills seem mountains, and the ant... Appears a monstrous elephant." --Charles Cotton's poem

"Forbear, thou great good husband, little ant." --Richard Lovelace

"The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man... Made courage, or made order, or made grace,... Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place... In scaled invention or true artistry,... Pull down thy vanity,... Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance." --Ezra Pound's poem

"If you're an ant, and you're walking along across the top of a cup of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin." --Jack Handey from Saturday Night Live. Source.

"I am a critic--as essential to the theater as ants to a picnic." --Joseph Mankiewicz

"Do not kill ants. They are your best friends." --Joe Brainard

"I've been on some fairways that are as good as the greens we putted on back then. We had crab grass. I remember one green where I putted through ants." --Sam Snead

"Imagine what it would be like to dive into a pool of army ants? You would be nothing but bone in a matter of seconds. If you're not up to that, just imagine putting your hand in a jar of them. It would have to be labeled corrosive or something." --Zhan Huan Zhou

"Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into wars, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves. The families of weaver ants engage in child labor, holding their larvae like shuttles to spin out the thread that sews the leaves together for their fungus gardens. They exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television." --Lewis Thomas

"Only two great groups of animals, men and ants, indulge in highly organized mass warfare." --Charles H. Maskins

"But, you may argue, our uniqueness is so extreme! More extreme than the platypus which looks like a collection of leftover parts? More unique than the societal honeybee with its division of labor? More unique than the communist ants who keep aphids as farm animals?" --John Logan

"When you turn on a light in a room, what happens?" Shaw said. "The roaches scatter, but the ants keep marching. You can step on them, throw water on them, but they keep on marching. I want ants for my defense." --Willy Shaw

"As I watch the busy ants on the trail and around the ant pile, I am impressed by the fact that they are doers and not just believers." --CR 1967

"It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle?" --unknown

"A marvelous creature. A model of specialization... Who else could suck an ant up his nose and enjoy it?" --About anteaters, "B.C." strip by Johnny Hart

"We may have no malevolent intentions toward an ant heap, but if we want to build a house on the same site..." --Rendezvous With Rama

"One day he sprained an ankle rather than crush an ant." --Les Miserables

"It is certain that there may be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter: thus the wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are notorious, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of a man." --Charles Darwin (from The Origin of Species, 1859)

"The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration." --Michael W. Fox, Vice President, The Humane Society of the United States, The Inhumane Society, New York, 1990.

"I could crush him like an ant. But it would be too easy. No, revenge is a dish best served cold. I'll bide my time until... Oh, what the hell, I'll just crush him like an ant." --Mr. Burns, The Simpsons ("Blood Feud" Episode 7F22)

"This is what metaphor is. It is not saying that an ant is an elephant. Perhaps; both are alive. No. Metaphor is saying the ant is an elephant. Now, logically speaking, I know there is a difference. If you put elephants and ants before me, I believe that every time I will correctly identify the elephant and the ant. So metaphor must come from a very different place than that of the logical, intelligent mind. It comes from a place that is very courageous, willing to step out of our preconceived ways of seeing things and open so large that it can see the oneness in an ant and in an elephant." --Natalie Goldberg

"It's kind of an insane case ... 6,000 ants dressed up as rice and robbed a Chinese restaurant." --Steven Wright

"Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb." --Sir Francis Bacon in Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100.

"The evaluator counts the ants at the picnic of progress." --Mohan Singh

"The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line. And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment." --John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

"All the best work is done the way that ants do things -- by tiny but untiring and regular additions." --Lafcadio Hearn

* <-- Tribble ... *********************** <-- Tribbles imitating ants (unknown author)

"The ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind. The ant, sir, is blowin' in the wind." --the misheard lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind"

"I go out of my way to avoid stepping on ants." --Terry McGovern, daughter of Senator George and Eleanor McGovern, subject of the book "Terry by her father"

"The ants sought personal revenge for my having sprayed them the day before." --Oliver Smith

"Your parents were killed by ants?" --Idle Hands movie

"I'm not a worker ant. I'm like a queen. Or maybe a king. But you never hear of king ants." --Sean Bentley

"You know what you are Earl? You're a little, tiny, busy ant. You too, Mike. Both you guys, with your mortgages and your term life insurance and your webber kettles(??). Ant. Ant. All of you, you're all a bunch of little, busy, blind ants. All you all. Saving up for your rainy days. Scratching up your acorns for the winter. You look at me and you think, "What a piece of pathetic trash out there in that leaky trailer." No spoon, no fork, no prospects. But, you know why? Cause I'm a grasshopper. Ant. Grasshopper. Ant. Grasshopper. Ant. Grasshopper. Ant. Grasshopper. Ant!" --Chris in the bar, before being thrown out in "Jaws of Life".

"Still we live meanly, like ants;... like pygmies we fight with cranes;... Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify... simplify..." --Henry Thoreau

"If someone makes you angry, I think the thing to do is tie them down to the ground, cover them in honey, and then release a swarm of killer ants on them. That way, you can hit them over and over again and say, 'Hey! I'm just trying to help!' and they can't really get mad at you." --R.M. Weiner

"Don't step on ants... they're people too." --a quote from ANTZ movie

"The ants are back Ted!" --Dougal from Father Ted television/TV/telly show.

"What is it all but a trouble of ants... In the gleam of a million... million of suns? --Alfred Lord Tennyson

"You feel the faint grit of ants beneath your shoes, but keep on walking because in this world you have to decide what you're willing to kill." --Tony Hoagland from "Candlelight"

"For while the giants have just been talking about an information superhighway, the ants have actually been building one: the Internet." From "The Accidental Superhighway." The Economist: A Survey of the Internet, 1-7 July 1995, insert.

"Is it for pleasure you were made? Not for doing, and for action? Look at the plants, the sparrows, the ants, spiders, bees, all doing their business, helping to weld the order of the world. And will you refuse man's part? And not run the way of nature's ordering?" --Marcus Aurelius

"If I want to be a robber, I rob the king's treasury. If I want to be a hunter, I hunt the rhino. What is the use of robbing beggars and hunting ants? So if you want to love, love God." --Swami Vivekananda

"Ants. There's a size for every picnic, a colour for every occasion, and a bite to let you know that they are there. Apart from the bite, that could describe a Basenji pretty well." --Len Reddie

"This is the ant. Treat it with respect. For it may very well be the next dominant lifeform of our planet." --Empire of the Ants movie

"Ants can carry twenty times their weight, which is useful information if you're moving out and you need help getting a potato chip across town." --Ron Darian

"When I was five years old, I saw an insect that had been eaten by ants and of which nothing remained except the shell. Through the holes in its anatomy one could see the sky. Every time I wish to attain purity I look at the sky through flesh." --Salvadore Dali

"When I am at my lowest, that is when I see things the clearest. It's hard to care about ants when you're soaring with eagles." --unknown

"We ants are runnin' the show! We're the lords of the earth!" --ANTZ

"When you can't fight on and drop to die; you're just a big tasty feast for the crows, ants, buzzards and flies." --unknown

"You'd think we could just attract ants like normal people." --Wolverine (X-Men:TAS)

"The ants and termites have renounced the Hobbesian war." --Petr Kropotkin

"There are things in the Universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless, and if they are aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know. We've tried and we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on. They are a mystery and I am both terrified and reassured that to know that there are still wonders in the Universe, that we have not explained everything. Whatever they are, Miss Sakai, they walk near Sigma 957 and they must walk there alone." --G'Kar - Mind War

"Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops." --Maya Angelou (b. 1928) American writer and entertainer

"The sun's just a big glass, we're all ants, I LOVE YOU." --"Magnified" song by the Failure band

"For every 1 person on earth there are 1 million ants." --Factoid for the video of Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" Pop Up Video

"I don't understand them anymore, these people that travel the commuter-trains to their dormitory towns. These people call themselves human, but, by a pressure they do not feel, are forced to do their work like ants. With what do they fill their time when they are free of work on their silly little Sundays?" --Antoine de saint-Exupéry, 'Wind, Sand, and Stars,' 1939

"All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little." --Lafcadio Hearn

"Applied mathematics will always need pure mathematics, just as anteaters will always need ants." --Paul Halmos

"Doubts are the ants in the pants that keep faith moving." --Fredrick Beuchner

"I'm not afraid of insects taking over the world, and you know why? It would take about a million ants just to aim a gun at me, let alone fire it. And you know what I'm doing while they're aiming it at me? I just sort of slip off to the side, and then suddenly run up and kick the gun out of their hands." --Jack Handy from Saturday Night Live

"If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?" --Marie Dressler

"I don't know how good ants are at swimmin', but I'd be willing to bet that a good fire'd get their attention." --MacGyver in Trumbo's World episode

"I do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered, changeless and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement of becoming--always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting and trying again--but always trying and always gaining. In each generation--with toil and tears--we have had to earn our heritage again." --Lyndon B. Johnson

"I don't believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots." --Isak Dinesen

"... [Let us inquire] what glory there was in an omnipotent being torturing forever a puny little creature who could in no way defend him(her!)self? Would it be to the glory of a man to fry ants?" --Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"Why eat ants when an uncle will do?" --Tymoutta Aardvarka of Sarcastica

"It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?" --Henry David Thoreau

"May 10,000 ants never invade your underwear drawer." --unknown

"To conquer the world, we must be as meticulous and calculating as a colony of ants on the march." --Julius Caesar. Thanks Scott.

"When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all." --Edward O. Wilson, 1992. Thanks Pheidole tetra.

"Everyone knows an ant can't move a rubber tree plant." --Motto of FTL Foundation (in Isaac Asimov book). Thanks RampageAI.

"What I fear most from the stars is not aliens for they have intelligence, but I fear social creatures like ants, that can overrun humans, that feel no emotion, and see us as an easy prey source." --unknown. Thanks Scott Kueck.

"Fall in those single lines like army ants..." --unknown

"I used to command a battalion of German ants." --Tom

"Is this stuff any good for ants?" "No, it kills them." --unknown

"Number fourteen. The naughty bits of an ant." --John Cleese from Monty Python's Flying Circus

"The antics begin!" --SimAnt Game

"What do ants and bees use for cattle?" --Tom

"A centipede is an ant made to Canadian/government specs." --unknown

"Antacid: What ants use to get high." --unknown

"After World War III, the ants will still be around." --unknown

"Cheerios: Hula-hoops for ants." --unknown

"Did the ant fall off the toilet seat because she was pissed off?" --unknown

"Don't be no Ant-Man. An Ant-Man has very low horizons." --Forrest Gump

"Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding." --unknown

"Everything tastes better at a picnic... the ants, the sand, everything." --unknown

"I got this aunt... Carpenter ant." --Girl and Crow

"It's them!... Not THEM, the giant ants?!" --Girl and Crow

"He who dislikes aardvarks was an ant in his former life." --unknown

"News Headline: Ants Take A Long Time To Cook In Microwave" --unknown

"I have to sit up with a sick ant." --unknown

"I killed an ant, now all my relatives are afraid of me." --unknown

"I like ants, in chocolate. Crunch, hummmm." --unknown

"Individually, ants are stupid. Together, they're brilliant." --unknown

"Lay a stick of bubble gum on an anthill for instant Siamese Ant Twins." --unknown

"Look not to the windmill's turning while the ant still burrows." --unknown

"No, I'd prefer a cooler WITHOUT an ant-door, thank you..." --unknown

"Now I have you where I want you... where is my jar of Bull ants?" --unknown

"PLEASE tell your aardvark that I'm NOT an anthill!" --unknown

"Really. And do these lions eat ants?" --John Cleese from Monty Python's Flying Circus

"Remember, ants are only waiting for you to die..." --unknown

"Thanks for giving me the courage to eat all those ants." --unknown

"There's an ant crawling up your back in the nighttime." --They Might Be Giants' Ant Song

"To the gods I am an ant, but to the ants, I am a god." --unknown

"Yo mama is so poor, I saw her fighting an ant for food." --unknown

"Your mom's legs are so hairy, the ants think they're in a jungle." --unknown

"Bother," said Winnie the Pooh, as he stepped on an ant.

"Oh bother", said Winnie the Pooh, "There's an ant on my foot..."

"Bother," said Winnie the Pooh, as the ants devoured him.

"... Our world is not an ant farm!" --Duncan MacLeod (Highlander Season 3 Finale Part II)

"You're kissing an ant hill." --Mike Nelson

"It's like stepping on ants... I don't step on ants, Major." --Odo and Kira from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9)

"At high tide the fish eat ants; at low tide the ants eat fish." --Thai Proverb

"Caution is not cowardice; even the ants march armed." --Ugandan Proverb

"It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?" --Henry David Thoreau

"Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of men." --Mortimer J. Adler

"We are closer to the ants than to butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure." --Gerald Brenan

"Where there is sugar, there are bound to be ants." --Malay Proverb

"An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox." --Mexican Proverb

"An anthill increases by accumulation. / Medicine is consumed by distribution. / That which is feared lessens by association. / This is the thing to understand." --Siddha Nagarjuna

"As a thinker and planner, the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man..." --Mark Twain

"I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit." --Miriam Makeba

"Size isn't everything. The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine." --Bill Vaughan

"The eyeless ant asked God, 'Give me eye-lashes.'" --Georgian Proverb

"The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee...gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own." --Leonardo da Vinci

"We are anthill men upon an anthill world." --Ray Bradbury

"What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment." --Friedrich von Schiller

"When an ant gets wings, it loses its head." --Bosnian Proverb

"When many work together for a goal, great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed by a single colony of ants." --Saskya Pandita

"Be thine enemy an ant, see in him an elephant." --Turkish Proverb

"Ladies and Gentlemen, hoboes and tramps...Crosseyed Mosquitoes and bow-legged ants...I've come to tell you the story..." --Bob Holman

"Ever watch ants just crawling around? They walk in that single straight line, a long, a long, long mile of ants. Sometimes they will walk over and pick up their dead friends and carry those around. I'm pretty sure it's because they can get in the carpool lane and pass up that line." --Ellen DeGeneres. Thanks Marcus B.

"Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny." --Saturday Night Live FAQ: Deep Thoughts

"No one preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing." --Ben Franklin

"An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden." --Francis Bacon

Allah's Apostle said, "Once while a prophet amongst the prophets was taking a rest underneath a tree, an ant bit him. He, therefore, ordered that his luggage be taken away from underneath that tree and then ordered that the dwelling place of the ants should be set on fire. Allah sent him a revelation: 'Wouldn't it have been sufficient to burn a single ant (that bit you)?'" --Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 54, Number 536

"The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege." --Chapter 3 in Sun Tzu's The Ancient Art of War (Translated by Lionel Giles)

"At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: 'O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it.'" --Surah 27. The Ant, The Ants, line 18

"Remember when walking down the road of life, always stop and squish the ants." --Albian in Creatures game

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise: which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest." --Proverbs 6:6-8 (Bible)

"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." --Proverbs 30:25 (Bible)

"Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over -- 'conquered', if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to... toil in their underground sugar caves." --Kent Brockman in The Simpsons' Deep Space Homer (1F13) episode

o/~ All the little ants are marching, red and black antennae waving... they all do it the same... they all do it the same... way... o/~ --Ants Marching song by Dave Matthews Band

"When the people look like ants -- PULL. When the ants look like people -- PRAY." --A skydiving quote

"When you need a helpline for breakfast cereals, it's time to start thinking about tearing down civilization and giving the ants a go." --Chris King in a.s.r.

"I am afraid that I am convinced that a community of human beings is a far more useful thing than a community of ants, and that if the human being is condemned and restricted to perform the same functions over and over again, he will not even be a good ant, not to mention a good human being." --Norbert Wiener

"What, like I had to live with all those ants? Do you know what I did to those ants? HoooHooo! No more ants!" --unknown

"Ants can destroy a tree. Therefore this ant can destroy a tree." --Logic & Fallacy

Have I told you how much I like ants, huh? Especially fried in a subtle blend of mech fluid and grated gears?" --Rampage to Inferno, "Transmutate" (S2E10) in Transformers (Beast Wars)

"Oh, look what Kyle got me, it's a red Mega... Ants in the pants? Ants in the pant?! Ants in the Pants?!! ..." --Eric Cartman in South Park's Damien Episode (Season 1; Episode 8)

"The foreign policy aim of ants can be summed up as follows: restless aggression, territorial conquest, and genocidal annihilation of neighboring colonies whenever possible. If ants had nuclear weapons, they would probably end the world in a week." --Journey to the Ants, page 59. Bert Holldobler & Edward O. Wilson

"I used to own an ant farm but had to give it up. I couldn't find tractors small enough to fit it." --Steven Wright

"I once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow's foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization" --Archy the Cockroach from Don Marquis' "Archy and Mehitabel" book (Certain Maxims of Archy poem). Thanks Rod Crawford.

"Yo mama's glasses are so thick, she can burn ants with them." --unknown


Got an ant-related quote? Then, please kindly e-mail it to Ant at The Ant Farm's Welcome Page.


Go to The Ant Farm's Reading Room or the Directory Roomwith a magnify glass (if you are lost).