Tag Archives: The Man and the Wood

229.The Man and the Wood

A MAN came into a forest and asked the trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The trees agreed to his request and gave him a young ash-tree. No sooner had the man fitted a new handle to his axe from it, than he began to use it and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest.

An old oak, lamenting when too late the destruction of his companions, said to a neighbouring cedar,

“The first step has lost us all. If we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might yet have retained our own privileges and have stood for ages.”

Do not give your enemy the means of destroying you.

Show enough concern in the seemingly innocent little things.

Give some people an inch and they will take a mile.

Nourishing of others needs to be seen in a wide perspective.