Edward Young
Day buries day; month, month; and year the year: Our life is but a chain of many deaths.Collection: Years
Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion, (so let me speak,) snatches the pen, and blots out nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality. The lettered world no longer consists of singulars: it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one.Collection: Book
Who lives to Nature, rarely can be poor ; who lives to fancy, never can be rich.Collection: Nature
Procrastination is the thief of time; year after year it steals, till all are fled, and to the mercies of a moment leaves the vast concerns of an eternal state. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; at fifty chides his infamous delay, pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; in all the magnanimity of thought, resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.Collection: Procrastination
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.Collection: Dignity
Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels; how heavily we drag the load of life!Collection: Pain
By night an atheist half-believes in God.Collection: God
The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite doneCollection: Dream
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.Collection: Success
The man who consecrates his hours by vigorous effort, and an honest aim, at once he draws the sting of life and Death; he walks with nature; and her paths are peace.Collection: Death
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!Collection: Men
The course of Nature is the art of GodCollection: Nature
Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer.Collection: Wise
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven.Collection: Morning
Mine is the night, with all her stars.Collection: Stars
Men are but men; we did not make ourselves.Collection: Men
Inhumanity is caught from man, From smiling man.Collection: Men
Like our shadows, our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.Collection: Wish
What is revenge but courage to call in our honor's debts, and wisdom to convert others' self-love into our own protection?Collection: Revenge
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss.Collection: Time
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.Collection: Life
We push time from us, and we wish him back; * * * * * * Life we think long and short; death seek and shun.Collection: Time
What is a miracle?--'Tis a reproach, 'Tis an implicit satire on mankind; And while it satisfies, it censures too.Collection: Miracle
Truth never was indebted to a lieCollection: Truth
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume; The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet saves. Sense is the diamond, weighty, solid, sound; When cut by wit, it casts a brighter beam; Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still.Collection: Cutting
The man of wisdom is the man of years.Collection: Wisdom
'T is greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven.Collection: Wise
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.Collection: Wise
The qualities all in a bee that we meet, In an epigram never should fail; The body should always be little and sweet, And a sting should be felt in its tail.Collection: Sweet
Praise, more divine than prayer; prayer points our ready path to heaven; praise is already there.Collection: Prayer
Narcissus is the glory of his race: For who does nothing with a better grace?.Collection: Race
The booby father craves a booby son, And by Heaven's blessing thinks himself undone.Collection: Father
Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in view, Brave men would act though scandal would ensue.Collection: Men
We nothing know, but what is marvellous; Yet what is marvellous, we can't believe.Collection: Believe
What most we wish, with ease we fancy near.Collection: Wish
Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live."Collection: Mistake
The soft whispers of the God in man.Collection: Men
Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer. Next day the fatal precedent will plead; thus on, til wisdom is pushed our of life.Collection: Wise
Affliction is a good man's shining time.Collection: Men
Each moment has its sickle, emulous Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root.Collection: Time
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small stands the mountain, moments make the year, and trifles life.Collection: Life
The first sure symptom of a mind in health Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home.Collection: Heart
Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.Collection: Men
An undevout astronomer is mad.Collection: Mad
Man wants little, nor that little long.Collection: Men
Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!Collection: Powerful
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.Collection: Pain
Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.Collection: Air