Top 240 Quotes & Sayings by Edward Young - Page 3

Oh, how portentous is prosperity! How comet-like, it threatens while it shines.

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

Nothing but what astonishes is true.

However smothered under former negligence, or scattered through the dull, dark mass of common thoughts - let thy genius rise as the sun from chaos.

What is revenge but courage to call in our honor's debts, and wisdom to convert others' self-love into our own protection?

Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid, A soldier should be modest as a maid.

Tis immortality, 'tis that alone, Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness, The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill. That only, and that amply this performs.

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.

With fame, in just proportion, envy grows.

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

Ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace.

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.

The spirit walks of every day deceased.

Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.

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.

In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom... And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.

Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment but in purchase of its worth, And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.

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.

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!

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

When men once reach their autumn, sickly joys fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees

Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast.

Give me, indulgent gods with mind serene, And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene, No splendid poverty, no smiling care, No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there.

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

Who can take Death's portrait? The tyrant never sat.

Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.

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.

O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, Lost to the noble sallies of the soul! Who think it solitude to be alone.

A dedication is a wooden leg.

The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, Provides a home from which to run away.

When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more.

A Deity believed, is joy begun; A Deity adored, is joy advanced; A Deity beloved, is joy matured. Each branch of piety delight inspires.

Satire recoils whenever charged too high; round your own fame the fatal splinters fly.

Nothing in Nature, much less conscious being, Was e'er created solely for itself.

A strange alternative * * *Must women have a doctor or a dance?

They most the world enjoy who least admire.

[The] public path of life Is dirty.

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.

In chambers deep, Where waters sleep, What unknown treasures pave the floor.

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.

Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himselfThat hideous sight,-a naked human heart.

The spider's most attenuated thread Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.

We push time from us, and we wish him back; * * * * * * Life we think long and short; death seek and shun.

Who combats with a brother, wounds himself.

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.

A prince indebted is a fortune made.

Live now; be damn'd hereafter.

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.

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.

This vast and solid earth, that blazing sun, Those skies, thro' which it rolls, must all have end. What then is man? The smallest part of nothing.

The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.

A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.

Body and soul, like peevish man and wife, United jar, and yet are loth to part.

But love, like wine, gives a tumultuous bliss, Heighten'd indeed beyond all mortal pleasures; But mingles pangs and madness in the bowl.

Who gives an empire, by the gift defeats All end of giving; and procures contempt Instead of gratitude.

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

Procrastination is the thief of time: Year after year it steals, till all are fled.

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.

Polite diseases make some idiots vain, Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.