Azad, WaldenHenry David Thoreau

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that “they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. - Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."
设拉子的的谢赫・萨迪在他的《蔷薇园》中写到“他们请教一个智者问，在至高的神所创的高大荫郁的众多名树之中，除了不结果的柏树，皆不能谓之azad,即自由，这其中有什么奥秘？智者回答说，这些树会在适当的季节，茂郁花开，而在不适之时干枯萎谢；柏树不属于它们，它永葆苍翠，这种本性才称得上azad，即宗教独立。你的心不要去追逐变幻，因为Dijlah，即底格里斯河，在哈里发灭亡后仍将会从巴格达奔流而过。如果你很富有，要像枣树一样慷慨自由；可是，如果没有什么可给的话，像柏树一样，成为azad，做自由的人。