Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Young claims that sadness is impious for a good man.
In plain terms
A good man should not be sad.
What can you take from it?
Seek virtue over melancholy.

Where it applies

  • grief
  • ethical reflection
  • spiritual practice

Putting it to work

  • cultivate joy
  • practice gratitude

Questions to consider

  • Is sadness always a moral failing?
  • How can you balance virtue and emotion?

Another view

Sadness can be a natural, healthy response to loss.

More from Edward Young

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

    Permalink to quote #54
  2. A God all mercy is a God unjust.

    Permalink to quote #52
  3. By night an atheist half believes a God.

    Permalink to quote #55

Related quotes

  1. Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt? May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal…

    Charlotte BronteCharlotte Bronte quote #32
  2. My life is in denial, and when I die, baptized in eternal fire I'll shed so many tears

    Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur quote #80
  3. For a tear is an intellectual thing, And a sigh is the sword of an Angel King, And the bitter groan of the martyr's woe Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.

    William BlakeWilliam Blake quote #124