They used to fly… 

Damien Hirst thinks even dead butterflies give us hope as they look alive when they’re dead, well… Butterflies have a long long history in symbolism.

And as a ‘nice-to-know’:

The Russian word for “butterfly”, бабочка (bábochka), also means “bow tie”. It is a diminutive of “baba” or “babka” (= “woman, grandmother, cake”), whence also “babushka” = “grandmother”.

The ancient Greek word for “butterfly” is ψυχή (psȳchē), which primarily means “soul” or “mind”.