Love Quote by Jean de La Fontaine

Power, La Fontaine suggests, is less a coronation than a corrosion test. The line has the clean, fable-maker’s brutality: strip away the costumes (prince, commoner) and you’re left with the same human animal, newly equipped to justify itself. It’s a warning that lands with special force from a poet whose job was to smuggle political critique past the censors of Louis XIV’s France. In that world, speaking directly about royal overreach could be dangerous; speaking “generally” about power’s habits was safer, and sharper.

The intent isn’t just to scold kings. It’s to puncture the comforting fantasy that tyranny is a monarchy problem while “the people” are naturally virtuous. La Fontaine levels the hierarchy: anyone entrusted with power will abuse it, unless something internal restrains them. That “unless” matters. Institutions can limit damage, but he’s arguing that the decisive safeguard is moral animation - love of truth and virtue - not mere rules, not pedigree, not popularity. Without that appetite for truth, power turns into a story you tell yourself: every advantage becomes “necessity,” every rival becomes “threat,” every indulgence becomes “for the greater good.”

The subtext is a cynical anthropology delivered in polished classical diction: moral character isn’t a decorative accessory to authority; it’s the only thing keeping authority from becoming predation. By pairing “truth” with “virtue,” La Fontaine also implies that corruption thrives on lies - not only to the public, but to the self. Abuse begins as a narrative before it becomes a policy.