“With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed: And the first Morning of Creation wrote What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.”

— Omar Khayyam, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward FitzGerald, LXXIII (1889)

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!”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“There be none of Beauty's daughters with a magic like thee; and like music on the waters is thy sweet voice to me.”

“At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it.”

“I've found that there is always some beauty left — in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”

“Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.”

“There is a science of intelligent living, an art of being fully human, in which we all can and ought to be creative.”