Aesop Quotes

83 Sourced Quotes

A frog once upon a time came forth from his home in the marsh and proclaimed to all the beasts that he was a learned physician, skilled in the use of drugs and able to heal all diseases. A Fox asked him, "How can you pretend to prescribe for others when you are unable to heal your own lame gait and wrinkled skin?"

Aesop
Benefits bestowed upon the evil-disposed, increase their means of injuring you.

Aesop
Those who cry the loudest are not always the ones who are hurt the most

Aesop
All men are more concerned to recover what they lose than to acquire what they lack.

Aesop
He is not to be trusted as a friend who illtreats his own family.

Aesop
If you had half as much brains as you have beard, you would have looked before you leaped.

Aesop
Pray do not grieve so; but go and take a stone, and place it in the hole, and fancy that the gold is still lying there. It will do you quite the same service; for when the gold was there, you had it not, as you did not make the slightest use of it.

Aesop
There can be little liking where there is no likeness.

Aesop
We like other people to show themselves to us as they really are.

Aesop
Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.

Aesop
Those who assume a character which does not belong to them, only make themselves ridiculous.

Aesop
Be content with what nature made you, or run the risk of earning contempt by trying to be what you're not.

Aesop
Woe is me! I foolishly abandoned what I had in order to grab hold of a phantom, and thus I ended up losing both that phantom and what I had to begin with.

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

Aesop
You will only injure yourself if you take notice of despicable enemies.

Aesop
If you choose bad companions, no one will believe that you are anything but bad yourself.

Aesop
Any number of lies will serve an rich and evil man.

Aesop
The boy cried "Wolf, wolf!" and the villagers came out to help him.

Aesop
It is with our passions as it is with fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters.

Aesop
Fine clothes may disguise, but foolish words will disclose a fool.

Aesop
We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.

Aesop
The fly sat upon the axel-tree of the chariot-wheel and said, What a dust do I raise!

Aesop
It is one thing to say that something should be done, but quite a different matter to do it.

Aesop
Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.

Aesop
Every truth has two sides; it is well to look at both before we commit ourselves to either.

Aesop
Since you rejected what was good in order to get something bad, you had better put up with it—or else something even worse might happen.

Aesop
It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow.

Aesop
If these town gods can't detect the thieves who steal from their own temples, it's hardly likely they'll tell me who stole my spade.

Aesop
Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.

Aesop
Then one day there really was a wolf, but when the boy shouted they didn't believe him.

Aesop