37 quotes
O partridge, bird of graceful gait, say whether wouldst thou shape thy way?
Be not so bold, for well we know how the religious cat can pray.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
How well said the aged farmer to his son,
O light of my eyes, thou wilt not reap save that which thou hast sown.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Opportunity flies, O brother,
As the cloud that quick doth pass;
Oh make use of it! life is precious
If we let it go,—alas!
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
If it is thy desire that the Beloved should not break the covenant,
Keep thy end of the thread that He may keep his end.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Spend well thy time; drink wine within the bower
For when a week is gone, the flower is not;
Snatch, snatch the hour that glads the heart so well
For the pearl always in the shell is not.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Regard opportunity. For when uproar fell upon the world,
Hafiz struck at the cup and through grief took the corner of retirement.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
A Shah no other than thyself aspiring Hafiz craves;
Oh! were he in thy doorway’s dust one of thy common slaves.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
It is a crime to seek to raise but self,
Before all other men to praise but self,
The pupil of the eye a lesson gives,
Be all submitted to thy gaze but self.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
None see nor hear the malice of the sky
Each ear is deaf and blind is every eye
Oft those who moon and sun their pillow thought
Have later bricks and clay too gladly sought.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
What serves thy armour ’gainst Fate’s arrows fierce?
What serves thy shield if Destiny transpierce?
Though steel and iron may thy ramparts plate
When comes the mandate, Death shall burst thy gate.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
However old, incapable,
And heart-sick I may be,
The moment I recall your face
My youth's restored to me.
Aloud I say it and with heart of glee,
‘Love’s slave am I and from both worlds am free.’
Can I, the bird of sacred gardens tell,
Into this net of chance how first I fell?
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Breeze which at the morning blowest,
Fly, if faith and truth thou knowest,
Say, to my Beloved one turning;
He who with thy love is burning
Dying sighs where he is hidden
‘Life without thee is forbidden.’
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow,
And bid thy pensive heart be glad,
Whate’er the frowning zealots say:
Tell them, their Eden cannot show
A stream so clear as Rocnabad,
A bow’r so sweet as Mosellay.
Heart, should the flood of death life’s fabric sweep away,
Noah shall steer the ark o’er billows dark, despair not.
Though perilous the stage, though out of sight the goal,
Whithersoe’er we wend, there is an end, despair not.
If love evades our grasp, and rivals press their suit,
God, Lord of every change, surveys the range, despair not.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Daughters of turbulent mind awaking their mothers’ ire,
And sons who of froward mood wish ill to their sire, I see;
Sherbets of sugar and rose the world to the fool supplies,
But naught save his own heart’s blood the food of the wise I see;
Galled by the pack-saddle’s weight the Arab’s proud steed grows old,
Yet always the ass’s neck encircled with gold I see.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.
Misattributed