The Proud Beetle
Once upon a time, deep inside a magical forest adorned with sweet-smelling flowers, there lived a beetle with a brightly gleaming black shell. This beetle was so arrogant that, looking at the shine of its shell under the sun, it believed itself the noblest creature of the forest. Every morning it climbed onto the leaves and puffed out its chest with pride, watching the sublime eagle gliding in the sky. It looked down on the humble lives of the other little beetles and believed that it too should rule the skies like that imposing bird. The wise ants of the forest warned it many times, but the arrogant beetle listened to no advice. One noon, when the burning rays of the sun were warming the forest, it climbed all the way to the top of a great plane tree.
Just then the magnificent eagle abandoned its broad wings to the wind and landed gracefully on one of the branches of the tree. The arrogant beetle rustled its tiny wings and bravely walked onto a thin branch right across from the eagle. "Hey, sublime bird, both of us are the peerless rulers of this forest," it shouted with a proud air. At first the eagle did not even notice this small and noisy creature, and then it turned its gaze downward. The beetle went on with ambition: "If you have wings, I have a smooth, unbreakable armor!" The eagle, smiling faintly, said, "Greatness is not in appearance, but in the reason and the humility that you carry."
But the beetle, blinded by its ambition, decided to challenge the wingbeat of the eagle to prove its strength. The eagle lifted its enormous wings into the air with a single stroke and created a powerful windstorm. The challenging beetle tried to hold on to the leaf against this merciless wind, but it could not hold on and was swept away. Gliding down like a leaf from meters of height, it fell hard onto the damp and muddy ground. That precious, brightly gleaming shell of its was smeared from top to bottom with pitch-black mud and a cloud of dust. The arrogant beetle, which barely got back on its feet, was left alone with the bitter truth of attempting things greater than itself. The pride of those who do not know their own limits is doomed to drop them from the highest peak into the muddy depths. Eat a big bite, but do not speak a big word.