<P> "To kill the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" is an idiom used of an unprofitable action motivated by greed . It refers to one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 87 in the Perry Index . </P> <P> Avianus and Caxton tell different stories of a goose that lays a golden egg, where other versions have a hen, as in Townsend: "A cottager and his wife had a Hen that laid a golden egg every day . They supposed that the Hen must contain a great lump of gold in its inside, and in order to get the gold they killed (her). Having done so, they found to their surprise that the Hen differed in no respect from their other hens . The foolish pair, thus hoping to become rich all at once, deprived themselves of the gain of which they were assured day by day ." </P> <P> In early tellings, there is sometimes a commentary warning against greed rather than a pithy moral . This is so in Jean de La Fontaine's fable of La Poule aux oeufs d'or (Fables V. 13), which begins with the sentiment that' Greed loses all by striving all to gain' and comments at the end that the story can be applied to those who become poor by trying to outreach themselves . It is only later that the morals most often quoted today began to appear . These are' Greed oft o'er reaches itself' (Joseph Jacobs, 1894) and' Much wants more and loses all' (Samuel Croxall, 1722). It is notable also that these are stories told of a goose rather than a hen . </P>

The goose with the golden eggs moral story
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