81 Edward Young Quotes

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

In records that defy the tooth of time.
#1
Great let me call him, for he conquered me.
#2
Life is the desert, life the solitude; Death joins us to the great majority.
#3
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue.
#4
The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.
#5
In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.
#6
The man that makes a character makes foes.
#7
Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt, And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.
#8
There is something in Poetry beyond Prose-reason; there are Mysteries in it not to be explained, but admired.
#9
When the Law shows her teeth, but dares not bite.
#10
The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.
#11
Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.
#12
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.
#13
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt instead of their discharge.
#14
None think the great unhappy but the great.
#15
The booby father craves a booby son, And by Heaven's blessing thinks himself undone.
#16
Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.
#17
Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
#18
With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue, Forever most divinely in the wrong.
#19
For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme, Nor take her tea without a strategem.
#20
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.
#21
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.
#22
Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
#23
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world.
#24
Creation sleeps! 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
#25
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss.
#26
Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer.
#27
Procrastination is the thief of time.
#28
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.
#29
All men think all men mortal but themselves.
#30
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
#31
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
#32
Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
#33
Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.
#34
Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, Hell threatens.
#35
'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
#36
Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.
#37
A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
#38
Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new (Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.
#39
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
#40
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.
#41
A death-bed 's a detector of the heart.
#42
Virtue alone has majesty in death.
#43
Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other's heel.
#44
Beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.
#45
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
#46
Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight,-a naked human heart.
#47
Man makes a death which Nature never made.
#48
And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.
#49
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
#50
Man wants little, nor that little long.
#51
A God all mercy is a God unjust.
#52
'Tis impious in a good man to be sad
#53
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
#54
By night an atheist half believes a God.
#55
Less base the fear of death than fear of life.
#56
A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
#57
We see time's furrows on another's brow, And death intrench'd, preparing his assault; How few themselves in that just mirror see!
#58
Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
#59
While man is growing, life is in decrease; And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb. Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
#60
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
#61
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
#62
Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.
#63
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.
#64
Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
#65
Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.
#66
And all may do what has by man been done.
#67
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
#68
What ardently we wish we soon believe.
#69
Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
#70
Truth never was indebted to a lie.
#71
The house of laughter makes a house of woe.
#72
A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
#73
Final Ruin fiercely drives Her plowshare o'er creation.
#74
An undevout astronomer is mad.
#75
The course of Nature is the art of God.
#76
Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform.
#77
By all means use some time to be alone.
#78
The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.
#79
They only babble who practise not reflection.
#80
Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.
#81

Edward Young quotes