Fable Quotes

“Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.”
― Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works

“And 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. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding...

{Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823}”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.

[October 2, 1910, interview in the NY Times Magazine]”
― Thomas Edison

“Is there some lesson on how to be friends?
I think what it means is that central to living
a life that is good is a life that's forgiving.
We're creatures of contact regardless of whether
we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.
Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more--
since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore.
So we make ourselves open while knowing full well
it's essentially saying "please, come pierce my shell.”
― David Rakoff

“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

“‎They are angry with me, because I know what I am." Said the little eagle. "How do you know that they are angry with you?" "Because, they despise me for wanting to soar, they only want me to peck at the dirt, looking for ants, with them. But I can't do that. I don't have chicken feet, I have eagle wings." "And what is so wrong with having eagle wings and no chicken feet?" Asked the old owl. "I'm not sure, that's what I'm trying to find out." "They hate you because you know that you are an eagle and they want you to think you are a chicken so that you will peck at the ground looking for ants and worms, so that you will never know that you are an eagle and always think yourself a chicken. Let them hate you, they will always be chickens, and you will always be an eagle. You must fly. You must soar." Said the old owl.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.”
― The Bhagavad Gita

“I could end this with a moral,
as if this were a fable about animals,
though no fables are really about animals.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Tent

“When her muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had nothing to talk about. She forgot the definition of "jazz" as well and came to think of it as every beautiful thing she had ever failed to appreciate: the taste of warm rain; the smell of a baby; the din of a swollen river, rushing past her tree and onward to infinity.”
― David Sedaris, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

“There is an old German fable about porcupines who need to huddle together for warmth, but are in danger of hurting each other with their spines. When they find the optimum distance to share each other's warmth without putting each other's eyes out, their state of contrived cooperation is called good manners. Well, those old German fabulists certainly knew a thing or two. When you acknowledge other people politely, the signal goes out, "I'm here. You're there. I'm staying here. You're staying there. Aren't we both glad we sorted that out?" When people don't acknowledge each other politely, the lesson from the porcupine fable is unmistakeable. "Freeze or get stabbed, mate. It's your choice.”
― Lynne Truss, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door

“I just wish moments weren’t so fleeting!' Isaac called to the man on the roof, 'They pass so quickly!'
'Fleeting?!' responded the tilling man, 'Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man is finished growing, he still has twenty years of youth. After that, he has twenty years of middle age. Then, unless misfortune strikes, nature gives him twenty thoughtful years of old age. Why do you call that quickly?' And with that, the tilling man wiped his sweaty brow and continued tilling; and the dejected Isaac continued wandering.
'Stupid fool!' Isaac muttered quietly to himself as soon as he was far enough away not to be heard.”
― Roman Payne, Hope and Despair

“A Swedish minister having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanna Indians, made a sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical facts on which our religion is founded — such as the fall of our first parents by eating an apple, the coming of Christ to repair the mischief, his miracles and suffering, etc. When he had finished an Indian orator stood up to thank him.

‘What you have told us,’ says he, ‘is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cider. We are much obliged by your kindness in coming so far to tell us those things which you have heard from your mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours.

‘In the beginning, our fathers had only the flesh of animals to subsist on, and if their hunting was unsuccessful they were starving. Two of our young hunters, having killed a deer, made a fire in the woods to boil some parts of it. When they were about to satisfy their hunger, they beheld a beautiful young woman descend from the clouds and seat herself on that hill which you see yonder among the Blue Mountains.

‘They said to each other, “It is a spirit that perhaps has smelt our broiling venison and wishes to eat of it; let us offer some to her.” They presented her with the tongue; she was pleased with the taste of it and said: “Your kindness shall be rewarded; come to this place after thirteen moons, and you will find something that will be of great benefit in nourishing you and your children to the latest generations.” They did so, and to their surprise found plants they had never seen before, but which from that ancient time have been constantly cultivated among us to our great advantage. Where her right hand had touched the ground they found maize; where her left had touched it they found kidney-beans; and where her backside had sat on it they found tobacco.’

The good missionary, disgusted with this idle tale, said: ‘What I delivered to you were sacred truths; but what you tell me is mere fable, fiction, and falsehood.’

The Indian, offended, replied: ‘My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practise those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?”
― Benjamin Franklin, Remarks Concerning the Savages

“In the specially Christian case we have to react against the heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible to make the facts vivid, because the facts are familiar; and for fallen men it is often true that familiarity is fatigue. I am convinced that if we could tell the supernatural story of Christ word for word as of a Chinese hero, call him the Son of Heaven instead of the Son of God, and trace his rayed nimbus in the gold thread of Chinese embroideries or the gold lacquer of Chinese pottery, instead of in the gold leaf of our own old Catholic paintings, there would be a unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity of the story. We should hear nothing then of the injustice of substitution or the illogicality of atonement, of the superstitious exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible insolence of an invasion of the laws of nature. We should admire the chivalry of the Chinese conception of a god who fell from the sky to fight the dragons and save the wicked from being devoured by their own fault and folly. We should admire the subtlety of the Chinese view of life, which perceives that all human imperfection is in very truth a crying imperfection. We should admire the Chinese esoteric and superior wisdom, which said there are higher cosmic laws than the laws we know.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

“When I grow up, maybe I will be
the first one to circle the sea.
Or maybe I will just spend all my day
doing everything my way.
Maybe I will be in a world of my own
I just hope not alone.
I just know that whatever I do
I will never, ever forget about you.”
― Oliver Neubert, Chantel's Quest for the Silver Leaf

“For if humanity has a future on this planet of a hundred million years, it is unthinkable that it should spend those aeons in a ferment of national self-satisfaction and chauvinistic idiocies.”
― William Golding

“Such is the passage, x. 14, where, after giving an account that the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at the command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to amuse children). This tale of the sun standing still upon Motint Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself. Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known all over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun did not rise, and the other why it did not set; and the tradition of it would be universal; whereas there is not a nation in the world that knows anything about it.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“A foolish friend may cause more woe
Than could, indeed, the wisest foe.”
― Jean de La Fontaine

“My mother looked at me then, with something in her eyes I’d never seen before. A reverence. As if something marvelous and at the same time harrowing had just happened. She blinked, pulling me between her and Saint, and I burrowed in, their warmth instantly making me feel like a child again.”
― Adrienne Young, Namesake

“The enduring rapture with magic and fable has always struck me as latently childish and somehow sexless (and thus also related to childlessness).”
― Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

“All birds of feather flock together,” said to himself Canada Goose … that carving figure Hun - a swallow in his chat room barn - was fun.”
― Lana M. Rochel, Carol of the Wings: Vintage Folk Patchwork Tale

“What Roop says is correct. That thermometer hasn’t worked in years.” Sanger paused, looking around for Hansom before continuing.

Not seeing the goatfish, he proceeded confidently, “Actually, I daresay my own studies have found the instrument to be so imprecise that it is my professional opinion that the temperature is just as likely to be going down as to be going up!”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Jessie the turtle, who alone immediately saw what the good doctor would say next.

“And I am sad to say, my friends," concluded Doc Hansom the goatfish, "if the caulking seal breaks before the professor returns, the aquarium will likely drain and we will all die.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“It may be," Doc Hansom the goatfish concluded, "that it is already too late.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“Chain! Chain you! What! Run you not, then,
just where you please, and when?”
“Not always, sir; but what of that?”
“Enough for me, to spoil your fat!
It ought to be a precious price
which could to servile chains entice;
for me, I’ll shun them while I’ve wit.”
So ran Sir Wolf, and runneth yet.”
― Jean de la Fontaine, Le loup dans les fables - La Fontaine - 2

“Though I’ve heard it said that these lands where we make our home were prosperous before he took governance of them, that it has been his taxes and sporadic, unannounced levies that have brought poverty among its people and made them fear what each new season might bring”
― Kirstyn McDermott, Triquetra

“Fable Town's door is set in a sprawling live oak whose knobby trunk rivals the size of the largest mausoleum in our cemetery-- I suppose the door has to be this large to fit a dragon, after all-- with a canopy of serpentine branches that extended like the wizened, swollen-knuckled fingers of a witch. The knots are so smooth to the touch that I know this tree must be hundreds of years old. Thousands, even. Maybe even the first tree to ever exist in the Hinterlands.
For what is older than fables themselves? a voice whispers in my mind.
Distant tinkles of laughter like fairy bells rustle the shimmering leaves. Everything about this tree whispers of ancient storybooks and steaming spicy tea and castle halls filled with lute music. A picture of an open storybook is carved into the door, along with words so timeworn that I have to trace them with my finger to read them.
"Once... upon... a... time..." I recite aloud in a voice as breathy as a spell.”
― Megan Shepherd, Hour of the Pumpkin Queen

“416. Dorothy straggled into a room and saw a block rotating like a three-dimensional phenakistiscope, but every motion was not predetermined. There were three pancake men in a house made of bread and a roof of bacon. A magical wolf came and told them that for “Every day for eternity, I will eat you, but there is a catch.” The wolf continued, “If you all spare each other, I will only eat one of your limbs, and you three will not be eaten that day. If two of you spare each other and one chooses to sacrifice, the sacrificer will be eaten. If two choose to sacrifice and one chooses to spare, the two sacrificers will be eaten. If three of you choose to sacrifice each other, all of you will be eaten.” After much thought, the pancake men chose to sacrifice each other for eternity.
Dorothy grins as she went to the next door.”
― Kolter Sands, Tomiétrèla

“397. Dorothy walked into a room that was a grand theatre with red satin curtains. A shadow play began. There were four paper puppets, and a paper wizard came in.
“There is an eternal game you four have to play for eternity,” the wizard said. “I have one million Francs to give for eternity. You four have to come to an agreement.”
“You have these options,” the wizard continued. “If all of you choose to take all the Francs, all of you get none of the Francs. If all of you choose not to take all the Francs, all of you get an integrated distribution of the Francs based on what you labor on and how long you labor. If one of you chooses to take all of the Francs and the others not, that one gets ten thousand Francs and the other three nine hundred and ninety thousand Francs. If three of the four choose to take the Francs, three receive ten thousand Francs collectively, and the one receives nine hundred and ninety thousand Francs. If two of the four choose to take the Francs, the two who take will receive one hundred thousand Francs; the others who do not take will receive nine hundred thousand Francs.”
The puppets contemplate and discuss with one another, and all choose not to take all the Francs for eternity, as there is no gain in receiving static amounts of Francs for their labor.”
― Kolter Sands, Tomiétrèla

“In Gretons-sur-Mer, the villagers, through the auspicious care of the Bouletiers, returned to their human form. Sometimes they wondered, looking at their reflection on the surface of water or on the rounded shine of a pewter pitcher, if a part of them had remained beastly, if the whiskers atop their lips had been there before. They wondered, stroking the spot, and mused on their transformation, to that time of war when the fabric of life was briefly woven with magic.”
― Stephanie Dupal, The Kindness of Terrible People and Other Stories

“A Gentile met a rabbi and said to him, 'You have taught me many things but there is one thing in particular I want to learn very much but you do not wish to teach to me. I want you to teach me the Talmud.' The rabbi replied, 'You are a non-Jew and you have the brain of a non-Jew. There is no chance that you will succeed in understanding the Talmud.' But the Gentile continued in his attempt to persuade the rabbi to teach him the Talmud. Finally, the rabbi then said to the Gentile, 'I agree to teach you the Talmud on condition that you answer one question.' The Gentile agreed and asked the rabbi, 'What is the question?' The rabbi then said to the Gentile, 'Two men fall down through the chimney. One comes out dirty and the other comes out clean. Who of those goes to wash up?' 'Very simple,' replied the Gentile. 'The one who is dirty goes to wash up but the one who is clean does not go to wash up.' The rabbi then said to the Gentile, 'I told you that you would not succeed in understanding the Talmud. The exact opposite happened. The clean one looks at the dirty and thinks that he is also dirty and goes to wash up. The dirty one, on the other hand, looks at the clean one and thinks that he is also clean and therefore does not go to wash up.' The Gentile said to the rabbi, 'This I did not think of. Ask me, please, another question.' The rabbi then said to the Gentile, 'Two men fall down through the chimney. One comes out dirty and the other comes out clean. Who of these goes to wash up?' The Gentile replied to the rabbi, 'Very simple. The clean one looks at the dirty one and thinks he is also dirty and goes to wash up. The dirty one, on the other hand, looks at the clean one and thinks that he is also clean and therefore does not go to wash up.' The rabbi said to the Gentile, 'You are wrong again. I told you that you would not understand, The clean one looks into the mirror, sees that he is clean, and therefore does not go to wash up. The dirty one looks into the mirror, sees that he is dirty, and goes to wash up.' The Gentile complained to the rabbi, 'But you did not tell me that there was a mirror there.' The rabbi said to the Gentile, 'I said that you were a non-Jew, and that with your brain you would not succeed in understanding the Talmud. According to the Talmud, you have to think of all the possibilities.' 'All right,' groaned the Gentile to the rabbi. 'Let us try once more. Ask me one more question.' For the last time, the rabbi said to the Gentile, 'Two men fall through the chimney. One came out dirty and the other came out clean, Who of these went to wash up?' 'That is very simple!' replied the Gentile. 'If there is no mirror there the clean one will look at the dirty one and will think that he is also dirty and will therefore go to wash up. The dirty one will look at the clean one and will think that he is also clean and will therefore not go to wash up. If there is a mirror there, the clean one will look into the mirror and will see that he is clean and will therefore not go to wash up. The dirty one will look into the mirror and will see that he is dirty and will therefore go to wash up.' The rabbi said to the Gentile, 'I told you that you would not succeed in understanding. You are a non-Jew, you have a non-Jewish brain. Tell me, how is it possible for two men to fall through the a chimney and for one to come out dirty and for the other to come out clean?”
― Alberto Manguel, Maimonides: Faith in Reason