It is the tale, not he who tells it.

The line asserts a principle of storytelling: what ultimately matters is the story itself—its emotional truth, coherence, and power—rather than the personality, reputation, or ego of the narrator/author. Read as advice to writers, it pushes against celebrity-author culture and self-display, urging craft and narrative integrity over authorial showmanship. Read more broadly, it suggests that messages should be judged on their substance rather than on who delivers them, a stance that can be both democratic (anyone can tell a great tale) and ethically bracing (don’t let charisma substitute for meaning).