Mankind is asleep, living in a desolate world.

"A man and a woman met one night at a party. They introduced themselves, each supplying their reasons for attending the party. The man smiled and asked her, 'Are you looking for a nice man?'
'I think,' she sighed, 'I'm looking for myself.'
That honest woman expressed a deep yearning to find her true nature. Millions of other human beings on earth are looking for the same thing. That is wisely placing first things first. When you really know who you are, you know all else necessary for a complete life." VH

When man shall learn that thoughts and opinions have an effect and that what he says to his neighbor he is responsible for, just as a person is who speaks against the government, he then is responsible to the laws. When man learns this, he will be careful what he says and how he sows the seeds of disease in healthy minds, as those persons who have sown the seeds of secession in the minds of the loyal. On the Circulation of the Blood I PPQ 1863

I do not believe in a mixture of good and evil in the world, or in myself. All is Good.
 Emma Curtis Hopkins (from The Gospel Series)

All ideas contain a substance as much as the food we eat, and these very ideas are what make us sick. They enter the system and help to make up the body which is itself merely an idea. According to my belief, ideas are imparted to the child before it is born who thus has to suffer for the sins or beliefs of its parents. Not that this was the design of the first cause, but man has wandered away from truth, has invented lies and deceived himself by false ideas till his body has become as corrupt as his ideas that feed it. On the Circulation of the Blood I PPQ 1863

Guy Finley~"There is only one thing for which God sent me into this world and that is to..." [continued]

Epictetus (AD 55–135) was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey), and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses.
Philosophy, Epictetus taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.
Suffering occurs from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, it is our duty to care for all our fellow men. Those who follow these precepts will achieve happiness and peace of mind.

Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi was a Persian poet who lived in Ghazni between the 11th century and the 12th century in what is now Afghanistan. He died between 1131 and 1141.

The Walled Garden of Truth or The Hadiqat al Haqiqa , his master work, expresses the poet's ideas on God, love, philosophy and reason. Mankind is asleep, living in a desolate world. For close to 900 years The Walled Garden of Truth has been consistently read as a classic and employed as a Sufi textbook.

Sanai's poetry stresses the possibility of an "awakening";

While mankind remains mere baggage in the world
It will be swept along, as in a boat, asleep.
What can they see in sleep?
What real merit or punishment can there be?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( 1749 – 1832 ) was a German writer, artist, and politician. Although his literary work has attracted the greatest amount of interest, Goethe was also keenly involved in studies of natural science. He wrote several works on morphology, and colour theory. Goethe also had the largest private collection of minerals in all of Europe. By the time of his death, in order to gain a comprehensive view in geology, he had collected 17,800 rock samples.

Light spectrum, from Theory of Colours. Goethe observed that with a prism, colour arises at light-dark edges, and the spectrum occurs where these coloured edges overlap.