What enters with difficulty goes not out easily

Some men there are whose love becomes true only after long converse, much contemplation, and extended familiarity. Such a one is likely to persist and to be steadfast in his affection, untouched by the passage of time; what enters with difficulty goes not out easily. That is my own way in these matters, and it is confirmed by Holy Tradition. For God, as we are informed by our teachers, when He commanded the Spirit to enter Adam’s body, that was like an earthen vessel — and the Spirit was afraid, and sorely distressed — said to it, “Enter in unwillingly, and come for again unwillingly.”

— from The Dove’s Necklace

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) was a Spanish Muslim writer and thinker and a leading proponent of the Zahiri school of Islamic thought, which seeks to interpret the Koran according to the most manifest meaning of the text. Authoring more than 400 works (of which only 40 survive), he wrote on such varied topics as jurisprudence, history, ethics, theology, and — as The Dove’s Necklace indicates — romantic love. He is considered the father of comparative religious studies.