Edward Young Quotes

145 Sourced Quotes

All men think all men mortal but themselves.

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

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

Edward Young
Procrastination is the thief of time:
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

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

Edward Young
Fame is the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught, Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.

Edward Young
The man who consecrates his hours by vigorous effort, and an honest aim, at once he draws the sting of life and Death; he walks with nature; and her paths are peace.

Edward Young
Oh, how portentous is prosperity! How comet-like, it threatens while it shines.

Edward Young
As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain us least when exquisitely keen.

Edward Young
A Star His Dwelling pointed out below: Ye Pleiades! Arcturus! Mazaroth! And thou, Orion! of still keener Eye! Say, ye, who guide the Wilder'd in the Waves, And bring them out of Tempest into Port!

Edward Young
In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom; but he who reflects not, never reaps; has no harvest from it, but carries the burden of age without the wages of experience; nor knows himself old, but from his infirmities, the parish register, and the contempt of mankind. And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.

Edward Young
Polite diseases make some idiots vain, Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.

Edward Young
A man I knew who lived upon a smile, And well it fed him; he look'd plump and fair, While rankest venom foam'd through every vein.

Edward Young
We bleed, we tremble; we forget, we smile - The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry

Edward Young
When men once reach their autumn, sickly joys fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees

Edward Young
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.

Edward Young
Old men love novelties; the last arriv'd Still pleases best; the youngest steals their smiles.

Edward Young
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.

Edward Young
And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

Edward Young
Angels are men of a superior kind; Angels are men in lighter habit clad.

Edward Young
What tender force, what dignity divine, what virtue consecrating every feature; around that neck what dross are gold and pearl!

Edward Young
Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid, A soldier should be modest as a maid.

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

Edward Young
Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.

Edward Young
Affliction is the good man's shining scene; prosperity conceals his brightest ray; as night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.

Edward Young
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume; The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet saves. Sense is the diamond, weighty, solid, sound; When cut by wit, it casts a brighter beam; Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still.

Edward Young
Nothing in Nature, much less conscious being, Was e'er created solely for itself.

Edward Young
Where, where for shelter shall the guilty fly, When consternation turns the good man pale?

Edward Young
Satire recoils whenever charged too high; round your own fame the fatal splinters fly.

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

Edward Young