Edward Young

Edward Young (c. 3 July 1683 – April 5, 1765) was an English poet, best remembered for Night-Thoughts.

Quotes

 * In records that defy the tooth of time.
 * The Statesman's Creed.


 * 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.
 * Busiris (1719), Act V, sc. i.


 * Great let me call him, for he conquered me.
 * The Revenge (1721), Act I, sc. i.


 * Life is the desert, life the solitude; Death joins us to the great majority.
 * The Revenge, Act IV, sc. i.


 * Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue.
 * The Revenge, Act V, sc. ii.


 * The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.
 * The Revenge, Act V, sc. ii.


 * In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.
 * A Vindication of Providence; or, A True Estimate of Human Life (1728).


 * The man that makes a character makes foes.
 * To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 28 (1730).


 * Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt, And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.
 * To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 277.


 * As Love alone can exquisitely bless, Love only feels the marvellous of pain; Opens new veins of torture in the soul, And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.
 * The Brothers (1753), Act V, scene i.


 * Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
 * Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206.


 * He weeps! the falling drop puts out the sun; He sighs! the sigh earth's deep foundation shakes. If in His love so terrible, what then His wrath inflamed?
 * Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 271.


 * Accept a miracle instead of wit,— See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.
 * Lines written with the Diamond Pencil of Lord Chesterfield; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).


 * Time elaborately thrown away.
 * The Last Day, book i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).


 * There buds the promise of celestial worth.
 * The Last Day, book iii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).


 * And friend received with thumps upon the back.
 * Universal Passion; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love of Fame (1725-1728)

 * When the Law shows her teeth, but dares not bite.
 * Satire I, l. 17.


 * The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.
 * Satire I, l. 51.


 * Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.
 * Satire I, l. 89.


 * Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.
 * Satire I, l. 145.


 * They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt instead of their discharge.
 * Satire I, l. 147.


 * None think the great unhappy but the great.
 * Satire I, l. 238.


 * Unlearned men of books assume the care, As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.
 * Satire II, l. 83.


 * The booby father craves a booby son, And by Heaven’s blessing thinks himself undone.
 * Satire II, l. 165.


 * Where Nature’s end of language is declin’d, And men talk only to conceal the mind.
 * Satire II, l. 207.


 * Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
 * Satire II, l. 282.


 * And waste their music on the savage race.
 * Satire V, l. 228.


 * With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue, Forever most divinely in the wrong.
 * Satire VI, l. 105.


 * For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme, Nor take her tea without a strategem.
 * Satire VI, l. 187.


 * Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.
 * Satire VI, l. 208.


 * 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.
 * Satire VII, l. 55.


 * How commentators each dark passage shun, And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
 * Satire VII, l. 97.

Night I

 * Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
 * Line 1.


 * Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world.
 * Line 18.


 * Creation sleeps! 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
 * Line 23.


 * On reason build resolve, that column of true majesty in man.
 * Line 30.


 * The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss.
 * Line 55.


 * Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.
 * Line 67.


 * An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there.
 * Line 89.


 * To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
 * Line 154.


 * 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.
 * Line 212.


 * Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer.
 * Line 390.


 * Procrastination is the thief of time.
 * Line 393.


 * 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.
 * Line 417.


 * All men think all men mortal but themselves.
 * Line 424.

Night II

 * He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
 * Line 24.


 * And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
 * Line 51.


 * Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
 * Line 90.


 * "I've lost a day!"—the prince who nobly cried, Had been an emperor without his crown.
 * Line 99. Suetonius says of the Emperor Titus: "Once at supper, reflecting that he had done nothing for any that day, he broke out into that memorable and justly admired saying, ‘My friends, I have lost a day!'" Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars (translation by Alexander Thomson).


 * Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
 * Line 112.


 * Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.
 * Line 160.


 * The spirit walks of every day deceased.
 * Line 180.


 * Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, Hell threatens.
 * Line 292.


 * Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.
 * Line 334.


 * 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
 * Line 376.


 * Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun.
 * Line 466.


 * A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
 * Line 571.


 * Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new (Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.
 * Line 582.


 * How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
 * Line 602.


 * 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.
 * Line 633.


 * A death-bed ’s a detector of the heart.
 * Line 641.


 * Virtue alone has majesty in death.
 * Line 650.

Night III

 * Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.
 * Line 63.


 * Beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.
 * Line 81.


 * Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
 * Line 104.


 * Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight,—a naked human heart.
 * Line 226.


 * ... life is most enjoy'd when courted least, most worth, when disesteemed,...
 * Line 410

Night IV

 * The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave, The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.
 * Line 10.


 * Man makes a death which Nature never made.
 * Line 15.


 * And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.
 * Line 17.


 * Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
 * Line 71.


 * Man wants little, nor that little long.
 * Line 118.


 * A God all mercy is a God unjust.
 * Line 233.


 * ’Tis impious in a good man to be sad
 * Line 676.


 * A Christian is the highest style of man.
 * Line 788.


 * Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
 * Line 843.

Night V

 * By night an atheist half believes a God.
 * Line 177.


 * Less base the fear of death than fear of life.
 * Line 441.


 * A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
 * Line 596.


 * Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhal'd and went to heaven.
 * Line 600.


 * We see time’s furrows on another’s brow, And death intrench’d, preparing his assault; How few themselves in that just mirror see!
 * Line 627.


 * Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
 * Line 661.


 * While man is growing, life is in decrease; And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb. Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
 * Line 717.


 * That life is long which answers life's great end.
 * Line 773.


 * The man of wisdom is the man of years.
 * Line 775.


 * Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
 * Line 1011.

Night VI

 * Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.
 * Line 128.


 * 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.
 * Line 309.


 * Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
 * Line 399.


 * Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.
 * Line 519.


 * And all may do what has by man been done.
 * Line 606.

Night VII

 * The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
 * Line 496.


 * What ardently we wish we soon believe.
 * Line 1311.

Night VIII

 * Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
 * Line 215.


 * Truth never was indebted to a lie.
 * Line 587.


 * Prayer ardent opens heaven.
 * Line 721.


 * The house of laughter makes a house of woe.
 * Line 757.


 * A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
 * Line 793.


 * To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.
 * Line 1045.

Night IX

 * Final Ruin fiercely drives Her plowshare o'er creation.
 * Line 167. Compare Robert Burns, To a Mountain Daisy: "Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate / Full on thy bloom".


 * 'T is elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand,— Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.
 * Line 644.


 * An undevout astronomer is mad.
 * Line 771.


 * The course of Nature is the art of God.
 * Line 1267.

Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

 * Born Originals - how comes it to pass that we die Copies?
 * London 1759, p. 42 books.google


 * There is something in Poetry beyond Prose-reason; there are Mysteries in it not to be explained, but admired; which render mere Prose-men Infidels to their Divinity.
 * London 1759, p. 28 books.google


 * For Rules, like Crutches, are a needful Aid to the Lame, tho' an impediment to the Strong.
 * London 1759, p. 28 books.google

Misattributed

 * By all means use some time to be alone.
 * A slight misquotation of George Herbert "The Church Porch", line 145: "By all means use sometimes to be alone", in The Temple (1633).


 * The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.
 * Widely attributed to Edward Young, but in fact written by E. B. White in Harper's Magazine (December 1940), and reprinted in his One Man's Meat (1942).


 * They only babble who practise not reflection.
 * From Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Pizarro, Act I, sc. i.


 * Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.
 * This is a quotation from "The Old Man's Relapse", a poem addressed to Edward Young, but written by Lord Melcombe.