Al-Mutanabbi المتنبي
950s · Iraq and Syria in Abbasid times · Recited at his rivals before the ruler of Aleppo
I am the one whose writing the blind man has seen, whose words have made the deaf man hear. I sleep with full eyelids, untroubled by my stray verses, while people sit up all night quarrelling over them.
أنا الذي نظر الأعمى إلى أدبي
وأسمعت كلماتي من به صمم
أنام ملء جفوني عن شواردها
ويسهر الخلق جراها ويختصمDivan of al-Mutanabbi
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Al-Mutanabbi المتنبي
950s · Iraq and Syria in Abbasid times
The horse, the night and the desert know me, and the sword, the spear, the paper and the pen.
الخيل والليل والبيداء تعرفني
والسيف والرمح والقرطاس والقلمDivan of al-Mutanabbi, the same poem
Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus
23 BC · Rome
I have built a monument more lasting than bronze and higher than the royal pile of the pyramids.
Exegi monumentum aere perennius
regalique situ pyramidum altiusOdes 3.30
Thucydides Θουκυδίδης
c. 400 BC · Athens, ancient Greece
It has been composed as a possession for all time, not as a prize piece to be heard for the moment.
κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται.History of the Peloponnesian War, book 1, chapter 22
Li Bai 李白
c. 752 · Tang China
Heaven gave me my talents and they must have a use. Scatter a thousand in gold and it will come back again.
天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。"Bring in the Wine," in the Complete Tang Poems
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us