The Use of Knowledge by Jean de La Fontaine

Between two citizens / A controversy grew. / The one was poor, but much he knew: / The other, rich, with little sense, / Claim'd that, in point of excellence, / The merely wise should bow the knee / To all such money'd men as he. / The merely fools, he should have said; / For why should wealth hold up its head, / When merit from its side hath fled? / 'My friend,' quoth Bloated-purse, / To his reverse, / 'You think yourself considerable. / Pray, tell me, do you keep a table? / What comes of this incessant reading, / In point of lodging, clothing, feeding? / It gives one, true, the highest chamber, / One coat for June and for December, / His shadow for his sole attendant, / And hunger always in th' ascendant. / What profits he his country, too, / Who scarcely ever spends a sou -- / Will, haply, be a public charge? / Who profits more the state at large, / Than he whose luxuries dispense / Among the people wealth immense? / We set the streams of life a-flowing; / We set all sorts of trades a-going. / The spinner, weaver, sewer, vender, / And many a wearer, fair and tender, / All live and flourish on the spender -- / As do, indeed, the reverend rooks / Who waste their time in making books. ' / These words, so full of impudence, / Received their proper recompense. / The man of letters held his peace, / Though much he might have said with ease. / A war avenged him soon and well; / In it their common city fell. / Both fled abroad; the ignorant, / By fortune thus brought down to want, / Was treated everywhere with scorn, / And roamed about, a wretch forlorn; / Whereas the scholar, everywhere, / Was nourish'd by the public care.

Let fools the studious despise; / There's nothing lost by being wise.[1]