We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself.

Fi’l-falsafa al-ula ("On First Philosophy") in M. A. Abu Rida (ed.) Rasa’ il al-Kindi al-falsafiyya (Cairo, 1950), p. 103; trans. R. Walzer in Greek into Arabic (Oxford, 1962), p. 12; reported in Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 2nd ed. (2005) ch. 4