# The most famous morals from La Fontaine's Fables

From The Crow and the Fox to The Animals Sick of the Plague: La Fontaine's lines that became proverbs, with the fable and book they come from.

- 7 votes · 14 items
- Jan 16, 2023 · monsieurglobetrotteur
- https://even.best/en/l/4556/the-most-famous-morals-from-la-fontaine-s-fables

## Top 14

1. **Depending on whether you are powerful or wretched, the court's judgements will make you white or black.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Animals Sick of the Plague, Book VII, fable 1.
2. **Never sell the bear's skin before you have brought it down.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Bear and the Two Companions, Book V, fable 20.
3. **Alas! We see that in all times the little ones have suffered for the follies of the great.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Two Bulls and a Frog, Book II, fable 4.
4. **With an ignorant magistrate, it is the robe that people bow to.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Ass Carrying Relics, Book V, fable 14.
5. **The world is old, they say: I believe it; yet it must still be amused like a child.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Power of Fables.
6. **Patience and time do more than strength or rage.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Lion and the Rat, Book II, fable 11.
7. **Distrust is the mother of safety.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Cat and an Old Rat, Book III, fable 18.
8. **It is good to speak, and better to keep silent.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Bear and the Garden Lover, Book VIII, fable 10.
9. **Greed loses everything by trying to win everything.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Hen with the Golden Eggs, Book V.
10. **Every bourgeois wants to build like great lords, every petty prince has ambassadors, every marquis wants pages.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Frog Who Wished to Be as Big as the Ox, Book I, fable 3.
11. **Nothing is more common than the name, nothing rarer than the thing (on friendship).** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Socrates' Saying, Book IV, fable 17.
12. **Love, love, when you have hold of us, we may well say: farewell, prudence.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Lion in Love, Book IV, fable 1.
13. **Learn that every flatterer lives at the expense of whoever listens to him.** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — The Crow and the Fox, Book I, fable 2.
14. **But the shortest works are always the best.** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — Discourse to the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, Book X, fable 14.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.