The Rat and the Elephant

By Aesop

A RAT, traveling on the highway, met a huge elephant, bearing his royal master and his suite, and also his favorite cat and dog, and parrot and monkey. The great beast and his attendants were followed by an admiring crowd, taking up all of the road.

What fools you are, said the rat to the people: to make such a hubbub over an elephant. Is it his great bulk that you so much admire? It can only frighten little boys and girls, and I can do that as well. I am a beast as well as he, and have as many legs and ears and eyes. He has no right to take up all the highway, which belongs as much to me as to him.

At this moment, the cat spied the rat, and, jumping to the ground, soon convinced him that he was not an elephant.

Moral:
Because we are like the great in one respect, we must not think we are like them in all.