About Jean de La Fontaine: Jean de La Fontaine is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages.
There is no road of flowers leading to glory.
It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
I bend and do not break.
A hungry stomach cannot hear.
Every journalist owes tribute to the evil one.
The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him.
One often has need of one, inferior to himself.
Never sell the bear's skin before one has killed the beast.
We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.
Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.
We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.
One returns to the place one came from.
Rather suffer than die is man's motto.
Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.
Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.
Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.
In short, Luck's always to blame.
Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.
