Omar Khayyam (1957)

Cornel Wilde: Omar Khayyam

Photos 

Quotes 

• Omar Khayyam : They call you Chosen One... the Seventh Excellent Creature.Are you also to be appointed Caliph, interpreting the Will of God, Supreme Ruler above all earthly kings?

  Hasani Sabah : If it were not so, I could not wear these robes nor hold this office.

  Omar Khayyam : You have named me your Counsellor, but

  [pause] 

  Omar Khayyam : I am happier with lesser matters, like this strip of vellum on which I have reduced the year to better reckoning. These figures will guide the lives of men when our mouths have been stopped with the dust of a thousand years, and the name Omar Khayyam is just as long forgotten. These figures, written on the skins of lambs, have more power than all your daggers and secret plans. Such men as you have arisen in every generation, from the dawn of mankind to our times, each with another form of the ancient conspiracy to rule this Earth. Millions of men have died to prove them wrong. What you are doing is not new, and will never be old. And when you have failed - as all those before you have failed and miserably died - it will happen again, and over again, as long as my calendar shall last.

  [pause] 

  Omar Khayyam : But my calendar may not last an hour. Only sworn Assassins leave this rock.