A Peacock, puffed up with vanity, met a Crane one day, and to impress him spread his gorgeous tail in the Sun.
“Look” he said. “What have you to compare with this? I am dressed in all the glory of the rainbow, while your feathers are gray as dust!”
The Crane spread his broad wings and flew up toward the sun.
“True,” replied the Crane; “but it is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.”
The Moral:
The useful is of much more importance and value, than the ornamental.
From The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine – Aesops Fables,
Published between 1668 and 1694
Image adapted from Francis Barlow’s 1687 edition of Aesop’s Fables