Edward Young Quotes

145 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

Edward Young
The course of nature governs all! The course of nature is the heart of God. The miracles thou call'st for, this attest; For say, could nature nature's course control? But miracles apart, who sees Him not?

Edward Young
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour? What tho' we wade in Wealth, or soar in Fame? Earth's highest station ends in 'Here he lies;' and 'Dust to dust' concludes the noblest songs.

Edward Young
I've known my lady (for she loves a tune) For fevers take an opera in June: And, though perhaps you'll think the practice bold, A midnight park is sov'reign for a cold.

Edward Young
Who knows if Shakespeare might not have thought less if he had read more?

Edward Young
Man wants but little, nor that little long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!

Edward Young
Men should press forward, in fame's glorious chase; Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.

Edward Young
Give me, indulgent gods with mind serene, And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene, No splendid poverty, no smiling care, No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there.

Edward Young
Day buries day; month, month; and year the year: Our life is but a chain of many deaths.

Edward Young
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, The twilight of our day, the vestibule; Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death, Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us embryos of existence free.

Edward Young
How distant some of these nocturnal Suns? So distant (says the Sage) 'twere not absurd To doubt, if Beams, set out at Nature's Birth, Are yet arriv'd at this so foreign World...

Edward Young
Ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

Edward Young
A dearth of words a woman need not fear; But 'tis a task indeed to learn to hear: In that the skill of conversation lies; That shows and makes you both polite and wise.

Edward Young
Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure?

Edward Young
Distinguisht Link in Being's endless Chain!
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!

Edward Young
Not all the pride of beauty; Those eyes, that tell us what the sun is made of; Those lips, whose touch is to be bought with life; Those hills of driven snow, which seen are felt: All these possessed are nought, but as they are The proof, the substance of an inward passion, And the rich plunder of a taken heart.

Edward Young
There is nothing of which men are more liberal than their good advice, be their stock of it ever so small; because it seems to carry in it an intimation of their own influence, importance or worth.

Edward Young
Body and soul, like peevish man and wife, United jar, and yet are loth to part.

Edward Young
A Deity believed, is joy begun; A Deity adored, is joy advanced; A Deity beloved, is joy matured. Each branch of piety delight inspires.

Edward Young
Who lives to Nature, rarely can be poor ; who lives to fancy, never can be rich.

Edward Young