Memories of Grigor Lenkov

...and the deficiencies that I supplied, these have been the cause of my ruin. For when a tree is famed for its fruit  and desired for its appearance, and its fruit is sweet, these very excellencies that are combined in it cause its destruction. For when men see that its leaves are beautiful, and its fruit abundant  and clustering together and sweet, they cut down a branch together with the fruit upon it. The peacock too, owing to  the greatness of its beauty, do men rob of its feathers, and they are the cause of its destruction. And a man who walks in uprightness, and is envied on account of his wealth and  the copiousness of his sustenance, the excellence of his character and the abundance of his successes, his enviers being many and  his enemies clamorous, does not easily escape from ruin.

from "Kalila and Dimna" by Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa