Talk:Jean de La Fontaine

I provided some provisional images for this page, as well as a few more quotes, but eventually I expect there can be better matching to the fables themselves. I myself am not likely to work on this more any time soon, as I have quite a backlog of pages I want to finish up much work on already. ~ Kalki 07:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced

Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Jean de La Fontaine. --Antiquary 18:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better.

• 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.

• Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.

• Every journalist owes tribute to the evil one.
  • Variant: Every journalist owes tribute to the devil.

• Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats; neither fear nor shame can cure them.

• Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which increases with the setting sun of life.

• Let us not be so difficult; the most accommodating are the cleverest.

• Luck's always to blame.

• Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

• One returns to the place one came from.

• Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.

• Rely only on yourself; it is a common proverb.

• The shortest works are always the best.

• There is no road of flowers leading to glory.

• Thus oft a struggle to escape — But lands us in a still worse scrape.

• We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.

• We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.