The Oxen and the Wheels

"The Oxen and the Wheels" is a fable by Aesop teaching a moral lesson. The story describes a pair of oxen pulling a heavily loaded wagon. As they struggle on, the wheels of the cart mock the oxen for their difficulties and offer unhelpful commentary. Eventually, the oxen point out that the load would be lighter without the wheels. This story is often used to teach that those who mock or criticize others' struggles often contribute nothing of worth themselves.

• Children

								
A pair of Oxen were drawing a heavily loaded wagon along a miry
country road. They had to use all their strength to pull the
wagon, but they did not complain.

The Wheels of the wagon were of a different sort. Though the task
they had to do was very light compared with that of the Oxen,
they creaked and groaned at every turn. The poor Oxen, pulling
with all their might to draw the wagon through the deep mud, had
their ears filled with the loud complaining of the Wheels. And
this, you may well know, made their work so much the harder to
endure.

"Silence!" the Oxen cried at last, out of patience. "What have
you Wheels to complain about so loudly? We are drawing all the
weight, not you, and we are keeping still about it besides."

They complain most who suffer least.
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