“Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so wisely — they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.”

—  Omar Khayyám

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the Two Worlds so wisely — they are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth…" by Omar Khayyám?
Omar Khayyám photo
Omar Khayyám 94
Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer 1048–1131

Related quotes

George Herbert photo

“242. The wise hand doth not all that the foolish mouth speakes.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Alfred Austin photo

“Why should you,
Because the world is foolish, not be wise?”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Franklin in Act II, sc. iv; p. 109.

“Prevailing customs and existing institutions are threatened by pioneers and prophets as well as by robbers and murderers, with the result that saints and sinners have often been thrust into adjoining cells.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Individualism and Socialism (1933)
Context: Prevailing customs and existing institutions are threatened by pioneers and prophets as well as by robbers and murderers, with the result that saints and sinners have often been thrust into adjoining cells. The crucifixion of Jesus between two thieves is the supreme illustration of a historic truth that nobility and depravity have often received the same punishment.

George Eliot photo

“Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

James Allen photo

“Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Visions and Ideals

Fernando Pessoa photo

“There are those that even God exploits, and they are prophets and saints in the vacuousness of the world.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 45
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Há os que Deus mesmo explora, e são profetas e santos na vacuidade do mundo.

“The Saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The Sage is a man who rids himself of his ego.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon (1958)

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 164

Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori photo

“Let us examine in what true wisdom consists, and we shall see, in the first point, that sinners are truly foolish, and, in the second, that the saints are truly wise.”

Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori (1696–1787) Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher…

Liguori, A. M. (1882). Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity: In What True Wisdom Consists. In N. Callan (Trans.), Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year (Eighth Edition, p. 43). Dublin; London: James Duffy & Sons.

Voltairine de Cleyre photo

“Gods of the World! Their mouths are dumb!
Your guns have spoken and they are dust.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

"Written-In-Red" Stanza 2
Context: Gods of the World! Their mouths are dumb!
Your guns have spoken and they are dust.
But the shrouded Living, whose hearts were numb,
have felt the beat of a wakening drum
Within them sounding — the Dead men’s tongue —
Calling: "Smite off the ancient rust!"
Have beheld "Resurrexit," the word of the Dead,
Written-in-red.

Related topics