“Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow'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.”
The Rubaiyat (1120)
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Omar Khayyám 94
Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer 1048–1131Related quotes

The Rubaiyat (1120)

“I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am.”
Science and Humanism (1951)
Context: I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing. Our burning question as to the whence and whither — all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavour of man. We try to find out as much as we can about the spatial and temporal surroundings of the place in which we find ourselves put by birth…

“Drink to me. Drink to my health. You know I can't drink any more.”
Quoted in: Scott Slater, Alec Solomita (1980), Exits: stories of dying moments & parting words. p. 8.
Slater & Solomita (1980) explained:
"It was a spirited dinner and Picasso a cheerful, genial host. After the meal, while pouring wine into a friend's glass, Picasso said, Drink to me. Drink to my health. You know I can't drink any more. A little later, about 11:30 P.M., he left his guests, saying, And now I must go back to work. He was up painting until 3:00 A.M. That morning Picasso woke at 11:30, unable to move. By 11:40 he was dead..".
1970s

“If you don't know where your're going, you should know where you came from.”
Source: The Invention of Wings

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work