'The Fox and the Leopard'

'The Fox and the Leopard', an illustration by John Vernon Lord 

in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 119.

The text:

The Fox and the Leopard

THE FOX and the Leopard disputed which was the more beautiful of the two. The Leopard exhibited one by one the various spots which decorated his skin. The Fox, interrupting him, said, “And how much more beautiful than you am I, who am decorated, not in body, but in mind.”

Moral: The beauty of the mind is more important than the beauty of the body.

Text: George Fyler Townsend (p111, 1868).

Selected parallels: Avianus 40. L’Estrange 1/252. Chambry 37. Perry 12 and 4a. TMI J424.3.