The parable has long been valued by both great thinkers and ordinary people of various cultures and worldviews. Brief, allegorical stories filled with deep meaning have become the ideal form for conveying previously untold knowledge. This book contains parables from different times and peoples, united by the main thing: the eternal ideas embedded in them. Sometimes caustic, sometimes paradoxical, often provoking long thoughts, these parables have remained a source of spiritual and worldly wisdom for mankind for many centuries.