Edward FitzGerald: Quotes

• Drinking

  yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
  tomorrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
   Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
  Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Fate

  The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
   Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Flowers and Trees

  I sometimes think that never blows so red
  The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
  That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
  Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Love

  A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
  A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
  Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
  Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Sky and Space

  And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
  Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
    Lift not your hands to It for help—for it
  As impotently moves as you or I.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Times of Day

  Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
  Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
  And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
  The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Transience

  Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
  One thing at least is certain—This Life flies;
   One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
  The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Wine

  And much as Wine has played the Infidel,
  And robbed me of my Robe of Honor—Well,
   I often wonder what the Vintners buy
  One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

• Youth

  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!
  Edward FitzGerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám