Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

I'll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

I would say things like 'I am the greatest! I'm pretty! If you talk jive, you'll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I'm pretty!' When white people heard me talking like this, some said, 'That black man talks too much. He's bragging.'

All the honey a bee gathers during its lifetime doesn't sweeten its sting

Things being at the worst, begin to mend; The bee when he hath shot his sting into your hand may then play with your eyelid.