The Thousand and One Nights (a large collection of anonymously-authored stories of Indian, Persian and Arabian origin)
“Be of good cheer, relax; forget your cares;
Cares eat away the resolute man’s heart.
Planning is no help to a slave who has no power.
Abandon this and live in happiness.”
- This quote comes from The Thousand And One Nights (specifically the story of The Fisherman and the ‘Ifrit, and that tale’s sub-stories: King Yunan and Duban the Sage and The Story of the Treacherous Vizier). The original concept of The Thousand And One Nights is believed to have been of Indian origin, but the text as it is known to the modern day was greatly shaped by Persian and Arabian scholars who reshaped, edited and added to the collection between the 9th and 15th centuries. The translation used here is by Malcolm C. Lyons (Penguin Classics, 2010, 2019).
