Aarna

“A few months ago I found a note tucked into a journal. I googled the quote. It was from a poem by Saadi, an Iranian poet who lived in the thirteenth century. It was from his masterpiece, 'Gulistan', or 'The Rose Garden', Wikipedia told me. Gulistan is 'poetry of ideas with mathematical concision', it said, possibly the most influential piece of Persian literature ever written. I read on and came across the the following lines:

'If one member is afflicted with pain,
other members uneasy with remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
the name of human you cannot retain.'

That's the essence of The Kindness of Strangers.”
― Fearghal O'Nuallain, The Kindness of Strangers: Travel Stories That Make Your Heart Grow