Aesop
The Oak and the Woodcutters
THE WOODCUTTER cut down a Mountain Oak and split it in pieces,
making wedges of its own branches for dividing the trunk. The
Oak said with a sigh, "I do not care about the blows of the axe
aimed at my roots, but I do grieve at being torn in pieces by
these wedges made from my own branches."

Misfortunes springing from ourselves are the hardest to bear.