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Edward Young Quotes

1683–1765 England

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

England
Critics
Philosophers
Poets
Theologians

Also known as: Young, Edward

Random Edward Young quote

252 quotes

Were man to live coeval with the sun,
The patriarch-pupil would be learning still.

Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.

Love of Fame (1725)

We rise in glory, as we sink in pride:
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.

True happiness ne'er entered at an eye;
True happiness resides in things unseen.

Narcissus is the glory of his race:
For who does nothing with a better grace?

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.

Confiding, though confounded; hoping on,
Untaught by trial, unconvinced by proof,
And ever looking for the never-seen.

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

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

Night-Thoughts (1742)

With your own heart confer;
And dread even there to find a flatterer.

To climb life's worn, heavy wheel
Which draws up nothing new.

Born Originals - how comes it to pass that we die Copies?

Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

Inhumanity is caught from man,
From smiling man.

That awful independent on to-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past;
Whose yesterdays look backward with a smile
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly.

Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt,
And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.

We see time's furrows on another's brow,
* * * * *
How few themselves in that just mirror see!

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

Night-Thoughts (1742)

Think nought a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year.

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

Night-Thoughts (1742)

Pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars,
From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Young (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.