Belling the Cat: The Aesop's Fable About the Gap Between Planning and Action
By
walterbell
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Summary
This article discusses the fable "Belling the Cat" (also known as "The Bell and the Cat" or "The Mice in Council"), attributed to Aesop. In the story, mice agree that placing a bell on a cat would warn them of its approach, but no mouse volunteers to actually attach the bell. The fable has become an idiom describing a situation where a group agrees on a difficult task assuming someone else will take the risk to accomplish it.
Key quotes
· 2 pulledThe term has become an idiom describing a group of persons, each agreeing to perform an impossibly difficult task under the misapprehension that someone else will be chosen to run the risks and endure the hardship of actual accomplishment.
In the story, a group of mice agree to attach a bell to a cat's neck to warn of its approach in the future, but they fail to find a volunteer to perform the job.
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