Omar Khayyam Quotes

“You see," Hassan said, his eyes bright, "what obedience is given me. Is even Malikshah obeyed thus?"
"I saw three lives cast away for nothing."
"Nay, for a proof. What are three lives worth in themselves? Before this sun, that is sinking now, rises again, a thousand human maggots will have crawled into oblivion and another thousand will be spawned upon his dunghill that is our world.”
― Harold Lamb, Omar Khayyam

“Hassan lowered his head. "I have tasted the bitter kernel of the fruit of wisdom. There is no God. The religions of the world are like aging women; their beauty and fruitfulness are gone. They are shrinking to the dry bones of superstition; soon nothing will remain of them but the scraps of hair and hide and bone that are preserved like precious stones in the reliquaries and shrines. What is the Black Stone of Mecca but a
strange stone that is like iron? If I could cry a message to the listeners of the earth, I would say, 'Overthrow all altars and thrones. They who sit upon the thrones and they who guard the altars are no more than common men shielding themselves behind lies.' It is true that the Moslems who pray to Allah are no wiser than the pagans who made offerings to the sun in the beginning of time. Is it not true?”
― Harold Lamb, Omar Khayyam