1048-1131, Persian Astronomer, Poet
'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.
Omar Khayyam – [Life and Death]
A hair divides what is false and true.
Omar Khayyam – [Truth]
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.
Omar Khayyam – [Sky]
Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
Omar Khayyam – [Alcohol and Alcoholism]
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.
Omar Khayyam – [Life and Living]
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.
Omar Khayyam – [Argument]
Oh, the brave Music of a distant drum!
Omar Khayyam – [War]
The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.
Omar Khayyam – [Writers and Writing]
The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.
Omar Khayyam – [Solitude]
There was a door to which I found no key: There was the veil through which I might not see.
Omar Khayyam – [Future]
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.
Omar Khayyam – [Wine]