Fables Quotes - Page 3

• Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.

  Aesop

  Life, Wisdom, Winning

  Aesop (1989). “Aesop's Fables”, Outlet

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• There is an Indian fable of three beings who drank from a river: one was a god, and he drank ambrosia; one was a man, and he drank water; and one was a demon, and he drank filth. What you get is a function of your own consciousness.

  Joseph Campbell

  Men, Rivers, Water

  Joseph Campbell, David Kudler (2003). “Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal”, p.46, New World Library

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• From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own.

  Alfred de Vigny

  Nature, Men, Doubt

  Alfred de Vigny (1840). “Cinq Mars (Complete)”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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• Don't count your chickens before they egg.

  Ross O'Donovan

  Eggs, Chickens, Hatching

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• What is history but a fable agreed upon?

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Time, Memories, Writing History

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• Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Inspiring, Kindness, Inspiration

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.90

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• History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust?

  Washington Irving

  Fall, Character, Dust

  Washington Irving (2006). “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book”, p.144, Penguin

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• I wanted to write a new fable and see how many rules you could break.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Writing, Literature, Break

  "Redemption songs". Interview with Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. May 28, 2004.

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• There are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with a cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten - before the end is told - even if there happens to be any end to it.

  Joseph Conrad

  Life, Men, Here And There

  Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.31, McClure, Phillips & Company

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• Natural history is not about producing fables.

  David Attenborough

  Natural, Natural History

  "Sir David Attenborough reveals a pacemaker and knee replacement surgery have given him a 'new lease of life'" by Claire Murphy, www.mirror.co.uk. November 6, 2016.

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• Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Secular Society

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• A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.

  Aesop

  Men, Feel Good, Enemy

  Aesop, Thomas James (1866). “Æsop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources”, p.107

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• Nobody sees the obvious, nobody observes the ordinary. There are more miracles in a square yard of earth than in all the fables of the Church.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Squares, Miracle, Church

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• I directed a piece of theater in Italy. We took nine fables from the town and we created a play.

  Vincent Schiavelli

  Play, Pieces, Nine

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• One good turn deserves another.

  Petronius

  Turns, Deserve

  Petronius Arbiter (1999). “The Satyricon”, p.36, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Betray a friend, and you'll often find you have ruined yourself.

  Aesop

  Fake Friends, Ruined, Betray

  Aesop, General Press (2016). “Aesop's Fables: A collection of 284 moral stories”, p.18, GENERAL PRESS

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• A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.

  Aesop

  Liars, Lying, Literature

  Aesop (2015). “Aesop's Fables”, p.44, Pelekanos Books

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• The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Atheist

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1970, Library of America

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• Equals make the best friends.

  Aesop

  Friendship

  Aesop, General Press (2016). “Aesop's Fables: A collection of 284 moral stories”, p.117, GENERAL PRESS

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• A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

  Aesop

  Peace, Stress, Food

  Aesop (1947). “The Fables of AEsop”, Ann Arbor [Mich.] : University Microfilms

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• Put your shoulder to the wheel.

  Aesop

  Life, Civilization, Wheels

  Ann McGovern, Aesop, Arthur Geisert (1990). “Aesop's Fables”, p.24, Scholastic Inc.

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• All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stories, Innocence, Morality

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.3088, Delphi Classics

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• Providence has done, and I am persuaded is disposed to do, a great deal for us; but we are not to forget the fable of Jupiter and the countryman.

  George Washington

  Jupiter, Done, Forget

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.57

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• There is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science,is but a passing fable.

  Herman Melville

  Character, Men, Egypt

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.2096, Delphi Classics

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• No matter how carefully records are kept and filed and computerized, they grow fuzzy with time. Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate--like dust. The longer the time lapse, the dustier the history--until it degenerates into fables.

  Isaac Asimov

  Dust, History, Lapses

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