The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.

This line is best known in English from Edward FitzGerald’s Victorian-era adaptation/translation of the Persian quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyám, published as The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (first edition 1859; later revised). FitzGerald’s version helped create Khayyám’s Western reputation and often reflects FitzGerald’s own philosophical tone as much as the medieval Persian original. The “moving finger” image appears within a cluster of quatrains emphasizing the irreversibility of time and the futility of trying to undo what has been done—an outlook that resonated with 19th‑century readers interested in fatalism, skepticism, and the limits of religious consolation.

The “moving finger” personifies time or fate as an impersonal scribe: life is continuously “written” into an unalterable record, and once an act or moment has passed, it cannot be revised. The couplet’s sting is moral and intellectual: neither religious devotion (“piety”) nor clever argument (“wit”) can erase consequences or rewrite history. In FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát, this becomes a meditation on human limitation—our desire for repentance, rationalization, or retrospective control collides with the one-way motion of time. The line’s enduring power lies in its stark, memorable formulation of irreversibility and accountability.

1) “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.”
2) “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.”
3) “Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”