Edward Young Quotes

Edward Young presents solemn, reflective verses on life, death, and time that feel like a slow-moving candle.

101 quotes

1. In records that defy the tooth of time.

2. Great let me call him, for he conquered me.

3. Life is the desert, life the solitude; Death joins us to the great majority.

4. Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue.

5. The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.

6. In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.

7. The man that makes a character makes foes.

8. Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt, And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.

9. There is something in Poetry beyond Prose-reason; there are Mysteries in it not to be explained, but admired.

10. When the Law shows her teeth, but dares not bite.

11. The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.

12. Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

13. Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.

14. They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt instead of their discharge.

15. None think the great unhappy but the great.

16. The booby father craves a booby son, And by Heaven's blessing thinks himself undone.

17. Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.

18. Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

19. With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue, Forever most divinely in the wrong.

20. For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme, Nor take her tea without a strategem.

21. Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.

22. One to destroy, is murder by the law; And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; To murder thousands takes a specious name, War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.

23. Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!

24. Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world.

25. Creation sleeps! 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

26. The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss.

27. Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer.

28. Procrastination is the thief of time.

29. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

30. All men think all men mortal but themselves.

31. He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.

32. Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.

33. Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!

34. Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.

35. Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, Hell threatens.

36. 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven.

37. Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.

38. A friend is worth all hazards we can run.

39. Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new (Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.

40. How blessings brighten as they take their flight!

41. The chamber where the good man meets his fate Is privileg'd beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

42. A death-bed 's a detector of the heart.

43. Virtue alone has majesty in death.

44. Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other's heel.

45. Beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.

46. Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.

47. Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight,-a naked human heart.

48. Man makes a death which Nature never made.

49. And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.

50. Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.

51. Man wants little, nor that little long.

52. A God all mercy is a God unjust.

53. 'Tis impious in a good man to be sad

54. Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.

55. By night an atheist half believes a God.

56. Less base the fear of death than fear of life.

57. A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.

58. We see time's furrows on another's brow, And death intrench'd, preparing his assault; How few themselves in that just mirror see!

59. Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.

60. While man is growing, life is in decrease; And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb. Our birth is nothing but our death begun.

61. The man of wisdom is the man of years.

62. Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.

63. Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.

64. Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.

65. Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!

66. Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.

67. And all may do what has by man been done.

68. The man that blushes is not quite a brute.

69. What ardently we wish we soon believe.

70. Too low they build who build beneath the stars.

71. Truth never was indebted to a lie.

72. The house of laughter makes a house of woe.

73. A man of pleasure is a man of pains.

74. Final Ruin fiercely drives Her plowshare o'er creation.

75. An undevout astronomer is mad.

76. The course of Nature is the art of God.

77. Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform.

78. By all means use some time to be alone.

79. The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.

80. They only babble who practise not reflection.

81. Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.

82. We push time from us, and we wish him back; * * * * * * Life we think long and short; death seek and shun.

83. The spirit walks of every day deceased.

84. Procrastination is the thief of time: Year after year it steals, till all are fled.

85. [The] public path of life Is dirty.

86. Too low they build who build below the skies.

87. We are all born originals, why is it so many of us die copies?

88. Britannia's shame! There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul . Less base the fear of death than fear of life. O Britain! infamous for suicide.

89. Some go to Church, proud humbly to repent, And come back much more guilty than they went: One way they look, another way they steer, Pray to the Gods; but would have Mortals hear; And when their sins they set sincerely down, They'll find that their Religion has been one.

90. He that is ungrateful has no guilt but one; all other crimes may pass for virtues in him.

91. The maid that loves goes out to sea upon a shattered plank, and puts her trust in miracles for safety.

92. As soon as we have found the key of life, it opens the gates of death.

93. Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain; And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.

94. However smothered under former negligence, or scattered through the dull, dark mass of common thoughts - let thy genius rise as the sun from chaos.

95. Narcissus is the glory of his race: For who does nothing with a better grace?.

96. Take God from nature, nothing great is left.

97. Ah! what is human life? How, like the dial's tardy-moving shade, Day after day slides from us unperceiv'd! The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth; Too subtle is the movement to be seen; Yet soon the hour is up--and we are gone.

98. Let no man trust the first false step of guilt; it hangs upon a precipice, whose steep descent in last perdition ends.

99. Who gives an empire, by the gift defeats All end of giving; and procures contempt Instead of gratitude.

100. 'T is impious in a good man to be sad.

101. Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment but in purchase of its worth, And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.