Quotes from Omar Khayyam

He who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

Why ponder thus the future to foresee, and jade thy brain to vain perplexity? Cast off thy care, leave Allah's plans to him – He formed them all without consulting thee.

Oh! My beloved! fill the cup, that clears to-day of past regrets and future fears.

There was the Door to which I found no key There was the Veil through which I might not see.

The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

And that inverted bowl we call The Sky, where under crawling coop't we live and die, lift not thy hands to It for help -- for it rolls impotently on as thou or I.

Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

Living Life Tomorrow's fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint, and heard great argument about it and about: but evermore came out by the same door as in I went.

Oh, the brave Music of a distant drum!

The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.

There was a door to which I found no key: There was the veil through which I might not see.

Tis all a Checker-board of Nights and days where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates and slays, and one by one back in the Closet lays.

You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse I made a Second Marriage in my house; favored old barren reason from my bed, and took the daughter of the vine to spouse.

A hair divides what is false and true.

By Fate full many a heart has been undone, And many a sprightly rose made woe-begone; Plume thee not on thy lusty youth and strength: Full many a bud is blasted ere its bloom.

Hearts are like tapers, which at beauteous eyes Kindle a flame of love that never dies; And beauty is a flame, where hearts, like moths, Offer themselves a burning sacrifice.

Lament not Fortune?s mutability, And seize her fickle favours ere they flee; If others never mourned departed bliss, How should a turn of Fortune come to thee?

Pagodas are, like mosques, true houses of prayer; ?Tis prayer that church bells waft upon the air; Kaaba and temple, rosary and cross, All are but divers tongues of world-wide prayer.

The value of three things is justly appreciated by all classes of men: youth, by the old; health, by the diseased; and wealth, by the needy.

This body is a tent which for a space Does the pure soul with kingly presence grace; When he departs, comes the tent-pitcher, Death, Strikes it, and moves to a new halting-place.

To friends and eke to foes true kindness show; No kindly heart unkindly deeds will do; Harshness will alienate a bosom friend. And kindness reconcile a deadly foe.

To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow; Counting on morrows breedeth bankrupt sorrow: O squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee; Make not too sure another breath to borrow.