Omar Khayyam Quotes

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.

Ah, lives of men! When prosperous they glitter - Like a fair picture; when misfortune comes - A wet sponge at one blow has blurred the painting.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

It's so easy for all the success in the world to suddenly end, and I'm quite aware of that.

Things go away and projects crumble and disappear, or you make your movie and it comes out and no one watches it.

Life is a stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart; The end lost in dream, They float past our view, We only watch their glad, early start. Freighted with hope, Crimsoned with joy, We scatter the leaves of our opening rose; Their widening scope, Their distant employ, We never shall know. And the stream as it flows Sweeps them away, Each one is gone Ever beyond into infinite ways. We alone stay While years hurry on, The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Happiness is brief. It will not stay. God batters at its sails.

Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders.

Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

One win, and you're on top of the world. Lose in the first round of the next tournament: you're back to reality.

Happens to everybody. Horses, dogs, men. Nobody gets out of life alive.

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.

Success lasts only three seconds. After that, you're the same as you were before you had it.

The good times of today, are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.

Love doesn't last.

History says, 'Don't hope on this side of the grave.'

I'm fascinated by failure, and I'm fascinated by finality. Shakespeare's historical plays are more universal than his comedies because they relate to the finality of life. Without finality, life would not be beautiful.

For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.

I see life as a burning meteorite that you can climb all over, and feed off, as it is falling to earth.

I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'

We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.

Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

To hold happiness is to hold the understanding that the world passes away from us, that the petals fall and the beloved dies. No amount of mockery, no amount of fashionable scowling will keep any of us from knowing and savoring the pleasure of the sun on our faces or save us from the adult understanding that it cannot last forever.