great compilations of Omar Khaiyyam's thoughts. I think this is what we all need in the present turbulent world.

1. RUBAIYAT - OMAR KHAYYAM - Victoria-M [email_address] AUTOMATIC

2. Omar Khayyam, who lived from 1048 to 1123 of the Christian era, was a Persian mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and above all poet. He compiled astronomical tables and contributed to the Persian calendar reform and discovered a geometrical method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle. Omar Khayyam's poetic work (“Rubaiyat”) has eclipsed his fame as a mathematician and scientist. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a lyric poem in quatrains (four-line stanzas).

3. Everyone knows that I never mumbled prayers. Everyone also knows I never tried to hide my faults. I don't know whether a higher Judge and a higher Kindness exist - but still, I am full of confidence as I have always been true to myself.

4. What do you prefer? To sit down in a wine house and there to investigate yourself and your conscience, or to kneel down in a church or mosque without your soul participating?. I don't even think about whether or not we have a Master and what he will do with us if he exists.

5. Look with compassion at the heavy drinkers. Know, that you too have your weaknesses. If you want to live in peace and clarity, then look at the poor and the handicapped carrying the burden of their misery, and see how fortunate you are!.

6. Live in such way, that your righteousness and knowledge does not trouble others. Be calm and master of yourself. Don't allow yourself to be aggressive. If you truly want to live in peace, smile at your Fate.

7. Be happy today, as you don't know what tomorrow will bring. Take some wine, sit down in the light of the moon and say to yourself that tomorrow that moon may look for you in vain.

8. Be happy that you have few friends. Don't feel obliged to show them endless sympathy. Before you shake hands, before you consider someone a friend, ask yourself whether you are not shaking a hand that may one day beat you.

9. How sad, a heart that does not know how to love, that does not know what it is to be drunk with love. If you are not in love, how can you enjoy the blinding light of the sun, the soft light of the moon?.

10. You know that you have no power or choice regarding your fate. So why should the uncertainty about what may happen tomorrow fill you with fear?. If you are truly wise, live now! The future? Who knows what it will bring.

11. Beyond the earth, beyond the farthest skies I try to find Heaven and Hell. Then I hear a solemn voice that says: "Heaven and hell are inside".

12. Our days pass as fast as the water of the river or the wind of the desert. But there are two days that do not interest me: yesterday and tomorrow.

13. Realise this: one day your soul will depart from your body and you will be drawn behind the curtain that floats between us and the unknown. While you wait for that moment, be happy, because you don't know where you came from and you don't know where you will be going.

14. E N D © March/2009 ENGLISH VERSION