Edward Young Quotes

How blessings brighten as they take their flight.

Too low they build who build below the skies.

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

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

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!

Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven.

Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.

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

The clouds may drop down titles and estates, and wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought.

Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels; how heavily we drag the load of life!

Mine is the night, with all her stars.

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

By night an atheist half-believes in God.

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.

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

A friend is worth all hazards we can run.

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.

There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired.

Be wise with speed; a fool at forty is a fool indeed.

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

Our birth is nothing but our death begun; As tapers waste, that instant they take fire.

Truth never was indebted to a lie

The purpose firm is equal to the deed

The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done

Read nature; nature is a friend to truth.

Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.

An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; legions of angels can't confine me there.

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.

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

The course of Nature is the art of God

Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.

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

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live."

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.

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

Unlearned men of books assume the care, As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.

Each moment has its sickle, emulous Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.

Less base the fear of death than fear of life.

Man maketh a death which Nature never made.

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.

A prince indebted is a fortune made.

Pity swells the tide of love.

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

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how complicate, how wonderful is man! Distinguished link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! A frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! Insect infinite! A worm! A God!

Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform and mortal men lay hold on heaven.

Fond man! the vision of a moment made! Dream of a dream! and shadow of a shade!

Friendship's the wine of life: but friendship new... is neither strong nor pure.

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