Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Edward Young (English Poet)

Edward Young (1683–1765) was an English poet, critic, philosopher, and theologian. He is best remembered for The Complaint: or, Night Thoughts (1742–45,) a long, didactic poem on death.

Born in Upham rectory, Hampshire, Young was educated at Winchester, New College, and Corpus Christi College-Oxford, and in 1708, he received a law fellowship of All Souls-Oxford. His first poetic work appeared in 1712, an Epistle to George Granville on being created Lord Lansdowne.

Young produced three tragedies: Busiris, at Drury Lane (1719,) The Revenge (1721,) and The Brothers (1753.) His satires, The Love of Fame, the Universal Passion (1725–28,) brought financial reward as well as fame, and for The Instalment (1726,) a poem addressed to Sir Robert Walpole, he received a pension of £200 a year.

In 1724, Young took orders. In 1727, he was appointed a royal chaplain, and in 1730, he became rector of Welwyn. His The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–45,) usually known as Night Thoughts, and occasioned by his wife’s death and other sorrows, has many lines which have passed into proverbial use.

Henry Charles Shelby wrote the biography The Life and Letters of Edward Young (1912.)

READ: Works by Edward Young

All evils natural, are moral goods; all discipline, indulgence on the whole.
Edward Young
Topics: Evils

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.
Edward Young

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

Who fails to grieve when just occasion calls, or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest: inhuman, or effeminate, his heart.
Edward Young
Topics: Grief

Those who build beneath the stars build too low.
Edward Young
Topics: Goals, Stars

The man that makes a character, makes foes.
Edward Young
Topics: Character

What we ardently wish we soon believe.
Edward Young
Topics: Wishes

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

Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids; her monument shall last when Egypts fall.
Edward Young

Where is the dust that has not been alive?—The spade and the plough disturb our ancestors.—From human mold we reap our daily bread.
Edward Young
Topics: Earth

Know that without star or angel for their guide, they who worship God shall find him.—Humble love, and not proud reason keeps the door of heaven.—Love finds admission where proud science fails.
Edward Young
Topics: Religion, Love

The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
Edward Young
Topics: Shame

Less base the fear of death than fear of life.
Edward Young
Topics: Fear

Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
Edward Young
Topics: Hope

Praise, more divine than prayer; prayer points our ready path to heaven; praise is already there.
Edward Young
Topics: Praise

Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Edward Young
Topics: Wishes, One liners

Man, know thyself; all wisdom centres there.
Edward Young
Topics: Self-Knowledge

Illustrious examples engross, prejudice, and intimidate. They engross our attention, and so prevent a due inspection of ourselves; they prejudice our judgment in favor of their abilities, and so lessen the sense of our own; and they intimidate us with the
Edward Young
Topics: Example

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

A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
Edward Young
Topics: Pleasure, Pain

Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
Edward Young
Topics: Death, Fools

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

Wishing—the constant hectic of the fool.
Edward Young
Topics: Wishes

For her own breakfast she ‘ll project a scheme,Nor take her tea without a stratagem.
Edward Young
Topics: Women

Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote, and think they grow immortal as they quote.
Edward Young
Topics: Quotations

We rise in glory as we sink in pride.
Edward Young
Topics: Pride

Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.
Edward Young

Cast an eye on the gay and fashionable world, and what see we for the most part, but a set of querulous, emaciated, fluttering fantastical beings, worn out in the keen pursuit of pleasure—creatures that know, own, condemn, deplore, and yet pursue their own infelicity? The decayed monuments of error! The thin remains of what is called delight!
Edward Young
Topics: Fashion

Why all this toil for the triumphs of an hour?
Edward Young
Topics: Life

Heaven’s sovereign saves all beings but himself that hideous sight, a naked human heart.
Edward Young
Topics: Heart

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *