Edward Young
Old men love novelties; the last arriv'd Still pleases best; the youngest steals their smiles.Collection: Men
The spider's most attenuated thread Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Tyrants
A prince indebted is a fortune made.Collection: Made
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!Collection: Envy
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.Collection: Life
Who gives an empire, by the gift defeats All end of giving; and procures contempt Instead of gratitude.Collection: Gratitude
When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Pay
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.Collection: Excellence
Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.Collection: Death
Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Pain
A Deity believed, is joy begun; A Deity adored, is joy advanced; A Deity beloved, is joy matured. Each branch of piety delight inspires.Collection: God
Nothing but what astonishes is true.Collection: Wonder
Who can take Death's portrait? The tyrant never sat.Collection: Death
However smothered under former negligence, or scattered through the dull, dark mass of common thoughts - let thy genius rise as the sun from chaos.Collection: Dark
The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.Collection: Blood
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.Collection: Taken
A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.Collection: Tyrants
In chambers deep, Where waters sleep, What unknown treasures pave the floor.Collection: Ocean
Man maketh a death which Nature never made.Collection: Men
Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat defects of judgment, and the will subdue; walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore of that vast ocean it must sail so soon.Collection: Ocean
Revere thyself, and yet thyself despiseCollection: Despise
They only babble who practise not reflectionCollection: Reflection
On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.Collection: Inspirational
Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,- An awful pause! prophetic of her end.Collection: Life
Angels are men of a superior kind; Angels are men in lighter habit clad.Collection: Angel
Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other's heel.Collection: Love
Pity swells the tide of love.Collection: Love
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.Collection: Love
To know the world, not love her, is thy point; She gives but little, nor that little, long.Collection: Love
Take God from nature, nothing great is left.Collection: Nature
And friend received with thumps upon the back.Collection: Friendship
Time elaborately thrown away.Collection: Time
He sins against this life, who slights the next.Collection: Next
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue.Collection: Children