"The smallest enemy can cause us a lot of trouble." This idea, which summarizes a military, biological, and everyday strategy—that the strength or impact of an adversary does not depend on their physical size, but on their capacity for resistance, adaptability, or the resources required to overcome them—has ancient roots.
The most famous and widespread version comes from Aesop (the fable of the mosquito/gnat and the lion). Jean de La Fontaine adapted and popularized it in 1668 as Le Lion et le Moucheron ("The Lion and the Gnat/Mosquito"). In it, the tiny insect challenges and torments the lion until he surrenders in exhaustion; the moral underscores that the smallest enemies are often the most formidable and difficult to defeat, and that whoever escapes great dangers may succumb to insignificant things. This is the main source that spread into popular tradition, proverb collections, and school adaptations (including Spanish and Italian versions titled "The Lion and the Mosquito/Fly").
Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812), an Italian poet, historian, and fabulist, author of Favole e Novelle, wrote a related variant titled Il Leone e il Tafano ("The Lion and the Horsefly"). In it, a small insect challenges and pesters the lion to the point of driving him away in despair, and the moral concludes: Nessun dispregerai: Che il più piccol nemico; Può darti briga assai. ("Despise no one: for the smallest enemy can cause you a lot of trouble.")
Pignotti, therefore, clearly and poetically formulated that idea within the 18th-century Italian fable tradition, drawing inspiration from classical heritage (Aesop) and French models. He is not the author of La Fontaine's famous version, but he did contribute one of the most direct formulations closest to the phrase circulating today.
In summary: the idea had been circulating since Antiquity and was consolidated by La Fontaine; Pignotti revisited it and gave it precise expression in his fable Il Leone e il Tafano.
Lorenzo Pignotti's fable Il Leone e il Tafano is quite short, like most classical fables in verse. It has a little over 40 lines and takes less than two minutes to read.
Here is the full text in Italian:
Il Leone e il Tafano
(Lorenzo Pignotti)Non mi guardar sì fiero, Che non mi fai paura; Credi che il mondo intero Tremi di tua bravura? Sol que’ vili animali, Che passeggiano a piè, Tremano innanzi a te: Ma quelli ch’hanno l’ali, Sì poca han soggezione Del superbo Leone, Ch’anche un Tafan par mio Puote, o signor mio bello, Disfidarti a duello.
Ah! insetto vil, se degno Crederti potess’io, Risponde, del mio sdegno; Con una leggierissima Sferzata solamente D’uno de’ crini miei Tacer perpetuamente, Credimi, ti farei.
Le ciarle sono inutili, Delle minacce io rido, Rispose quegli; e voglio Domar cotesto orgoglio: In faccia a tutti i tuoi, Alla pugna ti sfido; Difenditi se puoi.
Rapido qual saetta Sugli occhi a lui si getta, E stranamente il punge. Vibra il Leon la zampa, Ma già l’insetto è lunge. Torna, e di nuovo il fiede; Il Leon d’ira avvampa, Né mai però lo giunge. Quello ora fugge, or riede, E sempre il fere in faccia: Nel naso a lui si caccia; Freme il Leone e sbuffa, L’irta criniera arruffa, Si sferza a’ lati, e rugge; E per boschi e pendici Da disperato fugge.
Allor dalle narici, In aria trionfale, Esce, e con stridul’ale Grida in rauco ronzìo: Il vincitor son io.
Nessun dispregerai: Che il più piccol nemico Può darti briga assai.
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