Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was a Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer. He made significant contributions to solutions of algebraic equations, the calculation of the year’s length, the reform of the Persian calendar, and non-Euclidean geometry. He is also celebrated as the author of a collection of quatrains called the Rubāʿiyāt.
Born Ghiyath al-Din Abu’l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami in Nishapur, now in Iran, Khayyam spent much of his life teaching philosophy and mathematics. His work on mathematics is known by way of his commentary on Euclid’s Elements and through his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra.
Khayyam’s Rubāʿiyāt are meditations on the mysteries of existence and celebrations of worldly pleasures and are noted for their humorous skepticism, wit, and poetic skill. The Rubāʿiyāt was made famous by Edward Fitzgerald’s translation and adaption Rubāʿiyāt of Omar Khayyám (1859.) Critics have accused Fitzgerald of distorting Khayyam’s original poetry to conform to Victorian romanticism.
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A hair divides what is false and true.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: 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
Topics: Nature
Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: Alcohol
‘Tis all a chequerboard 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
Topics: Destiny
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
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
Topics: Argument
Heav’n is but the vision of fulfill’d desire. And hell the shadow from a soul on fire.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: Heaven
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
Topics: Life and Living
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
And Wilderness is Paradise endow.
—Omar Khayyam
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
There was a door to which I found no key: There was the veil through which I might not see.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: Future, The Future
The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: Solitude
I often wonder what the vintners buy one half so precious as the stuff they sell.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: Alcohol
The worldly hope men set their hearts upon turns ashes—or it prospers; and anon, like snow upon the desert’s dusty face, lighting a little hour or two—is gone.
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: Hope
Drunkards are doomed to hell, so men declare, Believe it not, ’tis but a foolish scare; Heaven will be empty as this hand of mine, If none who love good drink find entrance there.
—Omar Khayyam
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
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
Oh, the brave Music of a distant drum!
—Omar Khayyam
Topics: War