Alas! Alas! O Lovers of Worldly Desire! Even as the
swiftness of lightning ye have passed by the Beloved One, and have set your
hearts on satanic fancies. Ye bow the knee before your vain imagining, and call
it truth. Ye turn your eyes towards the thorn, and name it a flower. Not a pure
breath have ye breathed, nor hath the breeze of detachment been wafted from the
meadows of your hearts. Ye have cast to the winds the loving counsels of the
Beloved and have effaced them utterly from the tablet of your hearts, and even
as the beasts of the field, ye move and have your being within the pastures of
desire and passion.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah’)
