“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” – Known to some as a Kentucky proverb, numerous persons are cited as authoring the quote, including Shakespeare, Helen Keller, or as attributed to Chinese, Indian, Jewish, Irish or other authors. Other sources attribute the quote to Persian poet Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī (born, circa 1210), better known by his pen-name Saʿdī or Saadi (born, circa 1210 CE), Persian poet and prose writer of the medieval period, citing:
I never lamented about the vicissitudes of time or complained of the turns of fortune except on the occasion when I was barefooted and unable to procure slippers. But when I entered the great mosque of Kufah with a sore heart and beheld a man without feet I offered thanks to the bounty of God, consoled myself for my want of shoes and recited:
‘A roast fowl is to the sight of a satiated man
Less valuable than a blade of fresh grass on the table
And to him who has no means nor power
A burnt turnip is a roasted fowl.’
Saadi Chapter 3, story 19. Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold. – Gulistan (1258) / https://libquotes.com/saadi/quote/lbd9u9i