Top 240 Quotes & Sayings by Edward Young - Page 4

In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.

They only babble who practise not reflection

To know the world, not love her, is thy point; She gives but little, nor that little, long.

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

The person of wisdom is the person of years.

Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.

To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.

Angels are men of a superior kind; Angels are men in lighter habit clad.

Amid my list of blessings infinite, stands this the foremost, "that my heart has bled."

A dearth of words a woman need not fear; But 'tis a task indeed to learn to hear: In that the skill of conversation lies; That shows and makes you both polite and wise.

Final Ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o'er creation.

He sins against this life, who slights the next.

Take God from nature, nothing great is left.

Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!

A land of levity is a land of guilt.

Friendship's the wine of life.

An undevout astronomer is mad.

Distinguisht Link in Being's endless Chain! Midway from Nothing to the Deity!

The first sure symptom of a mind in health Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home.

A man I knew who lived upon a smile, And well it fed him; he look'd plump and fair, While rankest venom foam'd through every vein.

The purpose firm is equal to the deed

On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.

Time elaborately thrown away.

Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,- An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

And friend received with thumps upon the back.

And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

And all may do what has by man been done.

Man maketh a death which Nature never made.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.

Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer. Next day the fatal precedent will plead; thus on, til wisdom is pushed our of life.

Inhumanity is caught from man, From smiling man.

Man wants little, nor that little long.

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause.

Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.

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

Accept a miracle, instead of wit See two dull lines, with Stanhope's pencil writ.

We wish our names eternally to live; Wild dream! which ne'er had haunted human thought, Had not our natures been eternal too.

If we did but know how little some enjoy of the great things that they possess, there would not be much envy in the world.

Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small stands the mountain, moments make the year, and trifles life.

He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.

Midway from Nothing to the Deity!

The soft whispers of the God in man.

Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise

Heaven wills our happiness, allows our doom.

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.

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

Who knows if Shakespeare might not have thought less if he had read more?

Prayer ardent opens heaven.

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

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

Affliction is the good man's shining scene; prosperity conceals his brightest ray; as night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.

Beautiful as sweet, And young as beautiful, and soft as young, And gay as soft, and innocent as gay!

Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.

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

Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes.

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

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.

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.

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.

There buds the promise of celestial worth.