Seth

“A man in a boat is crossing a river when he sees an empty boat on course to collide with him. This doesn’t make him angry even though he’s an angry person. But now he sees there’s actually someone in the boat, so he calls out to them, telling them to change direction. When he gets no response, he calls out again — met with silence again, he shouts out a third time, adding some insults for good measure. Before, he wasn't angry; now he is. Before, the other boat was empty; now someone’s in it. Believe the boat is empty and you won’t respond in anger.”
― Zhuangzi

“If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like. Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grown to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise above all time and become eternal; then you will apprehend God. Think that for you too nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and science; find your home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights and lower than all depths; bring together in yourself all opposites of quality, heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once, on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God. But if you shut up your soul in your body, and abase yourself, and say “I know nothing, I can do nothing; I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount to heaven; I know not what I was, nor what I shall be,” then what have you to do with God?”
― Dennis William Hauck, The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy of Personal Transformation

“A man in a boat is crossing a river when he sees an empty boat on course to collide with him.

This doesn’t make him angry even though he’s an angry person.

But then he sees someone is in the boat — he calls out, telling them to change direction.

When his first call gets no response, he calls out again.

And when the second is also met with silence, he calls out a third time, throwing in some insults for good measure.

Before, he wasn't angry — now he is.

Before, the other boat was empty — now there's someone in it.

When you imagine the boats empty you won’t be so angry.”
― Zhuangzi

“The vain.—We are like storefront windows in which we ourselves constantly arrange, cover up, or light up the supposed qualities that others ascribe to us—in order to deceive ourselves.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality