What is your favorite fable or parable that teaches a moral theme or lesson?

Jack and the Beanstalk
I teaches that murder with robbery is OK.

Any episode of Itchy and Scratchy.

There is a story of the watchman in Seven Valleys and Four Valleys:

There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in separation from his beloved, and wasted in the fire of remoteness…

At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out…a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman following; then other watchmen came together, and barred every passage to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned to himself: “Surely this watchman is…my angel of death…seeking to harm me.”...Then he came to a garden wall, and with untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he threw himself down to the garden.

And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: “O God! Give Thou glory to the watchman…

Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman…He had driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness, had guided an ailing soul to the heart’s physician.

Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his plaint in the beginning.

There was a man who was born with only a head. One day his friend took him to their regular bar.

The bartender told them that an old Indian had been in and gave him some liquor that had remarkable properties. He asked if the poor man without a body would like to try some.

The head man said, “Sure, I’ll try anything.” So the bartender put down a glass of the liquor, with a straw, and the head sipped it all in.

Suddenly, he sprouted a neck, and then a chest! “More,” he cried, “give me more!”
The bartender poured more of the elixer and the man drank it down. He grew arms, and a torso.

“I need more, please give me more!” the man cried, as everyone looked on in amazement. The bartender gave him another shot, which the man drank with arms for the first time in his life. From his waist sprouted two legs.

The man was so happy, he danced a jig and then ran out in the street proclaiming his happiness with the universe!

Then he was hit by a bus and killed.

The moral of the story? It’s best to quite while you’re a head.

The Grasshopper and the Ant versus The Tortoise and the Hare.

During summer, the Ant builds his nest, and saves and stores food. The Grasshopper plays, as if there is no tomorrow.
Come winter, the Grasshopper is freezing and hungry, while the Ant has chest pains.

Could always be worse:

The poor man in the shtetl went to the rabbi to complain that his tiny house was so crowded with his wife and five children in it. The rabbi told him to bring the sheep into the house, next week the cow, then the chickens, then the horse. On the fifth week, the poor man went to the rabbi and the rabbi told him to now take all the animals back to the fields and the coops. What a mechiah (blessing) – was his house roomy now!

Winnie-the-Pooh

That lesson of male sexuality.

@ChazMaz Hahaha! “Tut tut! It looks like rain!”

The good samaritan. (A really good person is good to all. They don’t pick and choose who they will only be kind too.)
Romeo and Juliet – Young love can be really stupid. Ok! Prejudice can cost you a lot in the end.
Ah, the story of the chinese zodiac signs and how the rat lied to the ox to get to be first in line. (If it looks like a rat, sounds like a rat, it is a rat. At least thats what I got.)
Pinochio (Lieing kid stays wood. Honest kid gets rewarded)
Boy who cried wolf.
All I can think of right now.

By far, The Alchemist.

@Pandora Boys with wood aren’t all that bad, depending on one’s perspective :)

I like a lot of Aesop’s stuff…...the real Aesop, as Herodatus recalls him. I like
Hans Christian Anderson’s stuff, too. My favorite of his is called The Fir Tree. My favorite story isn’t classified as fairy tale or parable. It’s The Velveteen Rabbit.

Leo Tolstoy’s The Three Questions (short; long)

@phillis When someone loves you for a long time…

@janbb Yes, that’s it, exactly! I fell asleep so many nights, comforted by that one thought :)

@phillis I’m hoping to become real some day…

—@janbb Awww! You’re already real, sweetheart! You owe monthly bills :)

true, true; I guess that’s a different marker. And I am loved, just sometimes doesn’t feel like enough.

@janbb I’m sorry. I should have handled this with more sensitivity. I was hoping a reality-laced joke would be a help, and I admit, it wasn’t the smartest choice. I don’t know why you don’t feel loved enough,but there are some pretty amazing ways of fixing that.

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself because this crack in my side causes water to leak all the way back to your house.”

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them.

@NicoleSochacki – That’s lovely. :)

The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen.

Here’s the plot (lifted from Wikipedia): An Emperor who cares for nothing but his wardrobe hires two weavers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “just hopelessly stupid”. The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position or stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects (all of whom also pretend to see some sort of clothing on him); A child in the crowd calls out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.

There are far too many to pick one. I’ve filled my head with them since early childhood—Andersen, Grimm, Aesop, Bible, Andrew Lang, Bulfinch, Zen tales, Hindu tales, Mother Goose, more. I can pull one out for most any occasion. There isn’t much that you need to know that isn’t covered one way or another in those old stories.

Here’s one from Japan.

The Stone Cutter

It’s is similar to the story of Siddhartha

The Dog and His Reflection: a fable by Aesop

One day a dog was carrying a bone that he had stolen. He came upon a log lying across a stream. Crossing the log, the dog looked down into the water. Below him he saw what he thought was another dog carrying another bone.

How delicious that other bone looked to this greedy dog! Leaning over as far as he could, he snapped at the other dog to get his bone. But in his greed he lost both the bone in the water, which was only a reflection, and the bone he had stolen, which sank beyond his grasp.

There was a sparrow who while flying south for the winter, froze solid and fell to the ground. To make matters worse, a cow crapped on him. But the manure was all warm and defrosted him… so there he is all warm and happy to be alive and he starts to sing. Then a hungry cat comes along and clears off the manure, sees the little bird and he eats him.

So the moral of the story is this: everyone who craps on you is not necessarily your enemy and everyone who gets you out of crap is not necessarily your friend. And if you’re warm and happy, no matter where you are, you should just keep your big mouth shut.

From the movie Assassins. Cracks me up every time.

The Tortoise and the Hare: don’t be too cocky, have faith in yourself, people aren’t always who they seem to be (whether it’s good or bad), and the famous one, slow and steady wins the race!

I love the story of Geese:

In the fall when you see Geese heading south for the winter flying along in the “V” formation, you might be interested in knowing what science has discovered about why they fly that way.

It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own. Quite similar to people who are part of a team and share a common direction get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the trust of one another and lift each other up along the way.

Whenever a Goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go through it alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the power of the flock. If we have as much sense as a Goose, we will stay in formation and share information with those who are headed the same way that we are going.

When the lead Goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another Goose takes over. It pays to share leadership and take turns doing hard jobs.

The Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep their speed. Words of support and inspiration help energize those on the front line, helping them to keep pace in spite of the day-to-day pressures and fatigue. It is important that our honking be encouraging. Otherwise it’s just – well honking!

Finally, when a Goose gets sick or is wounded by a gunshot and falls out, two Geese fall out of the formation and follow the injured one down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and then they launch out with another formation to catch up with their group. When one of us is down, it’s up to the others to stand by us in our time of trouble. If we have the sense of a Goose, we will stand by each other when things get rough. We will stay in formation with those headed where we want to go.

The next time you see a formation of Geese, remember their message that “IT IS INDEED A REWARD, A CHALLENGE AND A PRIVILEGE TO BE A CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF A TEAM”

@JLeslie I feel so sorry for Jonathan Livingston Seagull right now. Heheheh :)

The Diary of Drizzt Do’urden from forgotten realms dark elf trillogy

The Lorax – conservation.