Because truth agrees with itself, here are two quotations uttered centuries apart and from different traditions, that echo one another:
"The few who hear the truths the reed has sung
Have lost their wits so they can speak this tongue
...
And if the rose should vanish from its sight
The nightingale will keep its beak shut tight --
The loved one's all, the lover's just a screen,
A dead thing, while the loved one lives, unseen
...
Don't you know why we can't perceive it here?
Your mirror's face is rusty -- scrape it clear!"
—Rumi's masterwork, "The Masnavi"
(Translation from the Persian, by Jawid Mojaddedi)
‘Life is infinitely great and profound as the immensity of the stars above us. One can only look at it through the narrow keyhole of one’s personal experience. But through it one perceives more than one can see. So above all one must keep the keyhole clean.’
—Franz Kafka, Conversations with Gustav Janouch