Perspective

I'm currently reading a book about a man reading the encyclopedia, who tells the story of a man relating a fable about another man wanting to read an encyclopedia.  (Confused?  That was Inception-esque.)

Anyway, that's not the important part.  The important part is the fable itself:

A king called a meeting of all the wise men in his kingdom, and he said, 'I want you to gather all the world's knowledge together in one place so that my sons can read it and learn.'  The wise men went off, and after a year they came back with twenty-five volumes of knowledge. The king looked at it and said, 'No. It's too long. Make it shorter.'  So the wise men went off for another year and they came back with one single volume.  The king looked at it and said, 'No. Still too long.' So the wise men went off for another year.  When they came back, they gave the king a piece of paper with a single sentence on it: "This too shall pass."

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.