Listen to the Narration:
A song-sparrow landed on an oak branch one autumn, and listened as a tattered leaf whispered to her.
“I’m a mighty tree,” said the oak leaf, “and my roots go deep. I tower over the forest, and I’ll go on living for many seasons.”
But the leaf was not the tree, in spite of what it believed, and it fell to the ground while the sparrow watched it.
The sparrow wondered about the other leaves, and went to listen on more branches. And she found that the rest of the leaves all thought that they were the tree, as well . . . even as the autumn wind carried them away.
For Parents: What Stoic Quote Does This Story Illustrate?
“ ‘Leaves, some the wind scatters on the ground. So is the race of men.’ Leaves are also your children. Leaves can cry out for credit, bestow praise, or on the contrary curse, blame or sneer and receive and transmit fame to later times. All such things are produced in spring and the wind casts them down, and the forest produces new leaves in their place. A brief existence is common to all things, and yet you avoid and pursue all things as if they would be eternal.”
Marcus Aurelius
