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

“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

“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

“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

“As Augustus basked in self-praise, he became aware of a movement beyond his reflection, beyond the glass. At first he saw the flicking tail of the yellow goatfish, then a blue and gold tang, then a school of pearl wrasses. As he refocused his eyes into the tank he realized that all of the creatures of the aquarium were just across the glass, all of them staring at him. What on Earth is going on here, their expressions seemed to say.

Augustus shook his head, suddenly uncomfortable. “Youse all there in the fish tank,” he growled, pointing, “youse can go stuff yerself for all I care! I’m done here.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“Exactly!” shouted Sarin the crab, now standing on hind legs. The looks of fear had subsided from the faces of the creatures. “We have a right to be happy, and live well my friends. That’s why I’m telling you all to eat to your heart’s content!”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“Surprisingly few tussles occurred over the falling food. ... Only Push the puffer and Hammy the parrotfish regularly stole more than their fair share. But they argued that as they were bigger than the others, they deserved more.

“Plus,” Push said, “and I don’t mean to be indelicate here, but some of you eat our ordure. Thus if we get more, you get more.”

“Let’s face it,” added Hammy, wanting to add to Push’s words, “that is the way the world works.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“On joining the aquarium community we all agreed to put aside our carnivorous ways to live off Professor Brown’s fish food. Every one of us agreed!

If we start to eat each other, what kind of life would that be?”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“What about what Doc said?" asked Big Moe. "If we turn up the temperature it might hurt some of the fishes."

"Collateral damage," said Sarin. "Nothing more. I tell you what, Big Moe, we'll turn it up slowly and the fish won't even notice.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“Doesn't matter what I think or how I feel," said Doc Hansom. "Just go look at the thermometer mounted on the aquarium glass. That will give you your answer."

Hansom went back to his inspections, leaving Tommy Tang to wonder why he had not thought of such a simple answer.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“Initially, only the crabs demurred. "It's not hot in here," Sarin said acidly. "Nothing has changed. You're all imagining things.”
― Scott Bischke, FISH TANK: A Fable for Our Times

“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