The parable is less spontaneous than the proverb.

It is a product of moral poetry rather than of folk wisdom.

Yet the parable was so like the proverb that the moral of a parable often became a new proverb.

The diction of the parable is naturally more ornate.

By the beauty of its expression, its frequent application of rural incidents to the life familiar in the cities, the rhythm and flow of its periods, its fertile imagination, the parable should certainly be placed high in the world's poetry.