“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!”

— Omar Khayyam, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward FitzGerald, LXXII (1859)

About Omar Khayyam

1048 – 1131

Persian polymath and poet, whose quatrains were popularised in English by Edward FitzGerald.

“The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.”

“Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain.”

“Ah, take the Cash in hand and wave the Rest; Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.”

“The long, dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather.”

“My hair is grey, but not with years, nor grew it white in a single night, as men's have grown from sudden fears.”

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”

“Would Time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should all be young men, all of us, and until Doom's Day.”