Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep; he, like the world, his ready visit pays where fortune smiles—the wretched he forsakes.
—Edward Young
Topics: Sleep
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
Of plain, sound sense, life’s current coin is made.
—Edward Young
Our birth is nothing but our death begun, as tapers waste the moment they take fire.
—Edward Young
Topics: Death, Birth
We rise in glory as we sink in pride.
—Edward Young
Topics: Pride
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed.—Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
—Edward Young
Topics: Purpose
Count that day lost, whose slow descending sun views from thine hand no worthy action done.
—Edward Young
Topics: Time
Read nature; nature is a friend to truth; nature is Christian, preaches to mankind, and bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
—Edward Young
Topics: Nature
Earth’s highest station ends in “Here he lies;” and “Dust to dust” concludes the noblest songs.
—Edward Young
Guard well thy thoughts; our thoughts are heard in Heaven.
—Edward Young
Topics: Thought
All men think all mortal but themselves.
—Edward Young
Oh, how portentous is prosperity! how, comet-like, it threatens while it shines.
—Edward Young
Topics: Prosperity
The man who builds, and lacks where with to pay, provides a home from which to run away.
—Edward Young
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. Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. It is the signal that demands despatch; how much is to be done!
—Edward Young
Topics: Time
For her own breakfast she ‘ll project a scheme,Nor take her tea without a stratagem.
—Edward Young
Topics: Women
Faith is not reason’s labor, but repose.
—Edward Young
Topics: Faith
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
Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords light but not heat; it leaves you undevout, and frozen at heart, while speculation shines.
—Edward Young
Topics: Knowledge
Satire! thou shining supplement of public laws.
—Edward Young
I’ve lost a day—the prince who nobly cried, had been an emperor without his crown.
—Edward Young
Topics: Day
‘Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours and ask them what report they bore to heaven, and how they might have borne more welcome news.
—Edward Young
Topics: Meditation
In our world death deputes intemperance to do the work of age.
—Edward Young
Swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
—Edward Young
Topics: Emotions
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
All evils natural, are moral goods; all discipline, indulgence on the whole.
—Edward Young
Topics: Evils
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!
—Edward Young
Topics: Man
The spider’s most attenuated thread is cord, is cable to man’s tender tie on earthly bliss—it breaks at every breeze.
—Edward Young
Topics: Happiness
We are all born originals—why is it so many of us die copies?
—Edward Young
Topics: Being True to Yourself, Originality
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
Faith is not only a means of obeying, but a principal act of obedience; not only an altar on which to sacrifice, but a sacrifice itself, and perhaps, of all, the greatest. It is a submission of our understandings; an oblation of our idolized reason to God, which he requires so indispensably, that our whole will and affections, though seemingly a larger sacrifice, will not, without it, be received at his hands.
—Edward Young
Topics: Faith
Leave a Reply