Edward Young Quotes

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.

Read nature; nature is a friend to truth.

Who, for the poor renown of being smart, Would leave a sting within a brother's heart?

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

been lowered slightly because

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

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.

They only babble who practise not reflection.

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.

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

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.

One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heaven.

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

A Christian is the highest style of man.

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.

The spirit walks of every day deceased.

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

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

The purpose firm is equal to the deed.

A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.

Truth never was indebted to a lie.

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

Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer.

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

At thirty a 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.

A foe to God was never true friend to man

Inhumanity is caught from man, From smiling man.

Wise it is to comprehend the whole.

Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.

Men before you have quit smoking - you can too!

Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.

The qualities all in a bee that we meet, In an epigram never should fail; The body should always be little and sweet, And a sting should be felt in its tail.

I had looked for happiness in fast living, but it was not there. I tried to find it in money, but it was not there either.

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

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.

He that's ungrateful has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.

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

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

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

A friend is worth all hazards we can run.

[The] public path of life Is dirty.

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

Less base the fear of death than fear of life.

Mine is the night, with all her stars.

The first sure symptom of a mind in health Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home.

Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain, It, makes us wander, wander earth around, To fly that tyrant Thought. As Atlas groan'd The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.

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

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.

Friendship is the wine of life.

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

A foe to God ne'er was true friend to man, Some sinister intent taints all he does.

Heaven wills our happiness, allows our doom.

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

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

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

How blessings brighten as they take their flight.

Life is the desert, life the solitude, death joins us to the great majority.

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

A prince indebted is a fortune made.

The bell strikes One. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours.

An undevout astronomer is mad.

A God alone can comprehend a God.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.

Virtue alone has majesty in death.

Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!

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.

Beautiful as sweet, And young as beautiful, and soft as young, And gay as soft, and innocent as gay!

Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion, (so let me speak,) snatches the pen, and blots out nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality. The lettered world no longer consists of singulars: it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one.

If we did but know how little some enjoy of the great things that they possess, there would not be much envy in the world.

Live now; be damn'd hereafter.

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

Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.

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.

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.

With fame, in just proportion, envy grows.

Horace appears in good humor while he censures, and therefore his censure has the more weight, as supposed to proceed from judgment and not from passion.

A dedication is a wooden leg.

What ardently we wish, we soon believe.

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

When pain can't bless, heaven quits us in despair.

O let me be undone the common way, And have the common comfort to be pity'd, And not be ruin'd in the mask of bliss, And so be envy'd, and be wretched too!

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

'T is greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven.

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

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

To know the world, not love her, is thy point; She gives but little, nor that little, long.

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.

We nothing know, but what is marvellous; Yet what is marvellous, we can't believe.

We are all born originals - why is it so many of us die copies?

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.

Nothing but what astonishes is true.

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.

A God all mercy is a God unjust.

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

The man of wisdom is the man of years.

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

Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,- An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

We cry for mercy to the next amusement, The next amusement mortgages our fields

To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.

A land of levity is a land of guilt.