Top 160 Quotes & Sayings by Jean de La Fontaine
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French poet Jean de La Fontaine.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats: neither fear nor shame can cure them.
Never sell the bear's skin before one has killed the beast.
It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
A hungry stomach cannot hear.
People who make no noise are dangerous.
People must help one another; it is nature's law.
Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.
There is nothing useless to men of sense.
The argument of the strongest is always the best.
Every journalist owes tribute to the evil one.
Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.
Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.
Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable.
The strongest passion is fear.
Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.
Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.
One often has need of one, inferior to himself.
Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.
Luck's always to blame.
Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.
But the shortest works are always the best.
Patience and time do more than strength or passion.
It is impossible to please all the world and one's father.
Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
Rather suffer than die is man's motto.
Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.
Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him.
Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
One returns to the place one came from.
There is no road of flowers leading to glory.
By the work one knows the workman.
Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which increases with the setting sun of life.
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better.
In short, Luck's always to blame.
It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
I bend and do not break.
Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it.
To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism - this is the art of living.
Man is ice to truth and fire to falsehood.
Gentleness succeeds better than violence.
The more wary you are of danger, the more likely you are to meet it.
How wealthy the gods would be if we remembered the promises we made when we were in danger.
Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret.
No favor can win gratitude from a cat.
Half of today is better than all of tomorrow.
If you deal with a fox, think of his tricks.
Often we find our own destiny on the same roads that we have been avoiding.
From a distance it is something; and nearby it is nothing.
All the brains in the world are powerless against the sort of stupidity that is in fashion.
What God does, He does well.
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