The Oak and the Woodcutter By Aesop’s Fables

Moral: Misfortunes springing from ourselves are the hardest to bear.
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.”