Top 100 La Fontaine Sayings
#2. Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
Jean De La Fontaine
#4. Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.
Jean De La Fontaine
#10. Patience and perseverance at lengthAccomplish more than anger or brute strength.
Jean De La Fontaine
#12. To win a race, the swiftness of a dart Availeth not without a timely start
Jean De La Fontaine
#13. Beware, so long as you live, or judging men by their outwards appearance.
Jean De La Fontaine
#14. Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable.
Jean De La Fontaine
#15. One should oblige everyone to the extent of one's ability. One often needs someone smaller than oneself.
Jean De La Fontaine
#18. All the brains in the world are powerless against the sort of stupidity that is in fashion.
Jean De La Fontaine
#20. It is said, that the thing you possess is worth more than two you may have in the future. The one is sure and the other is not.
Jean De La Fontaine
#24. Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
Jean De La Fontaine
#26. There's nothing sweeter than a real friend:
Not only is he prompt to lend
An angler delicate, he fishes
The very deepest of your wishes,
And spares your modesty the task
His friendly aid to ask.
A dream, a shadow, wakes his fear,
When pointing at the object dear.
Jean De La Fontaine
#30. O tyrant love, when held by you,
We may to prudence bid adieu.
[Fr., Amour! Amour! quand tu nous tiens
On peut bien dire, Adieu, prudence.]
Jean De La Fontaine
#31. Belgium thinks that however great the peril which a country might have to undergo under the system which we seek to establish here, that country ought to do its duty.
Henri La Fontaine
#33. Socrates, when informed of some derogating speeches one had used concerning him behind his back, made only this facetious reply, Let him beat me too when I am absent.
Jean De La Fontaine
#36. Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats: neither fear nor shame can cure them.
Jean De La Fontaine
#37. Perhaps you are making a cat's paw of me with Phillotson all this time. Upon my word it almost seems so
to see you sitting up there so prim.
Thomas Hardy
#43. O love, when thou gettest dominion over us, we may bid good-by to prudence.
Jean De La Fontaine
#51. You've tried to reform what will not learn. Shut doors on traits that you wish were dead; They will open a window and return.
Jean De La Fontaine
#52. Un auteur ga te tout quand il veut trop bien faire. An author spoils everything when he wants too much to do good.
Jean De La Fontaine
#53. International institutions ought to be, as the national ones in democratic countries, established by the peoples and for the peoples.
Henri La Fontaine
#56. Imitators are a slavish herd and fools in my opinion.
[Fr., C'est un betail servile et sot a mon avis
Que les imitateurs.]
Jean De La Fontaine
#57. One should stick to the sort of thing for which one was made; I tried to be an herbalist, Whereas I should keep to the butchers trade.
Jean De La Fontaine
#58. I don't believe that Nature's powers
Have tied her hands or pinioned ours,
By marking on the heavenly vault
Our fate without mistake or fault.
That fate depends on conjunctions
Of places, persons, times, and tracks,
And not on the functions
Of more or less of quacks.
Jean De La Fontaine
#59. 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.
Jean De La Fontaine
#61. Love cries victory when the tears of a woman become the sole defence of her virtue.
Jean De La Fontaine
#66. We love good looks rather than what is practical, Though good looks may prove destructive.
Jean De La Fontaine
#69. What a wonderful thing it is to have a good friend. He identifies your innermost desires, and spares you the embarrassment of disclosing them to him yourself.
Jean De La Fontaine
#72. We ought never to scoff at the wretched, for who can be sure of continued happiness?
Jean De La Fontaine
#75. Peoples will be as before, the sheep sent to the slaughterhouses or to the meadows as it pleases the shepherds.
Henri La Fontaine
#80. Rogues are always found out in some way. Whoever is a wolf will act like a wolf, that is most certain.
Jean De La Fontaine
#81. If every man works at that for which nature fitted him, the cows will be well tended.
Jean De La Fontaine
#82. Men of all ages have the same inclinations, over which reason exercises no control. Thus, wherever men are found, there are follies, ay, and the same follies.
Jean De La Fontaine
#83. La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure. The reason of the strongest is always the best.
Jean De La Fontaine
#84. While it is not always profitable to analogize fact to fiction, La Fontaine's fable of the crow, the cheese, and the fox demonstrates that there is a substantial difference between holding a piece of cheese in the beak and putting it in the stomach.
Felix Frankfurter
#86. Une ample Come die a' cent actes divers, Et dont la sce' ne est l'Univers. A grand comedy in one hundred different acts, On the stage of the universe.
Jean De La Fontaine
#87. The best laid plot can injure its maker, and often a man's perfidy will rebound on himself.
Jean De La Fontaine
#92. Neither blows from pitchfork, nor from the lash, can make him change his ways.
[Fr., Coups de fourches ni d'etriveres,
Ne lui font changer de manieres.]
Jean De La Fontaine
#93. But a rascal of a child (that age is without pity).
[Fr., Mais un pripon d'enfant (cet age est sans pitie).
Jean De La Fontaine
#97. All roads lead to Rome, but our antagonists think we should choose different paths.
Jean De La Fontaine
#98. Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
Jean De La Fontaine
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