179 quotes
Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall;
And some loquacious Vessels were; and some
Listen'd perhaps, but never talk'd at all.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
No longer hug your grief and vain despair
But in this unjust world be just and fair
And since the substance of the world is naught
Deem yourself naught and so shake off dull care.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
You see the world but all you see is naught,
And all you say and all you hear is naught,
Naught the four quarters of the mighty earth,
The secrets treasured in your chamber naught.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Since no one can assure thee of the morrow
Rejoice thy heart to-day and banish sorrow
With moon-bright wine, fair moon! the moon in heaven
Will look for us in vain on many a morrow.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Open the door! O warder best and purest,
And guide the way, O thou, of guides the surest!
Directors born of men shall not direct me,
Their counsel comes to nought, but thou endurest.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1120)
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
To-day to love and rapture we have soared,
To-day in Magian precincts wine adored,
And rapt beyond ourselves we do abide,
Within that tavern, ‘Am I not your Lord?’
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
Strange—is it not?—that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the road
Which to discover we must travel too.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1120)
And strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried —
"Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)
Tn taverns better far commune with Thee
Than pray in mosques and fail Thy face to see!
O first and last of all thy creatures Thou,
'Tis thine to burn and thine to cherish me.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Fate will not bend to humour man’s caprice,
So vaunt not human powers but hold your peace,
Here must we stay, weighed down with grief for this,
That we were born so late, so soon decease.
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)