# Edward Young

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

## Quotes

* In records that defy the tooth of time.
** The Statesman's Creed.
* 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.
** Busiris (1719), Act V, sc. i.
* Great let me call him, for he conquered me.
** The Revenge (1721), Act I, sc. i.
* Life is the desert, life the solitude; Death joins us to the great majority.
** The Revenge, Act IV, sc. i.
* Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue.
** The Revenge, Act V, sc. ii.
* The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.
** The Revenge, Act V, sc. ii.
* In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.
** A Vindication of Providence; or, A True Estimate of Human Life (1728).
* The man that makes a character makes foes.
** To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 28 (1730).
* Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt, And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.
** To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 277.
* As Love alone can exquisitely bless, Love only feels the marvellous of pain; Opens new veins of torture in the soul, And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.
** The Brothers (1753), Act V, scene i.
* Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
** Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206.
* He weeps! the falling drop puts out the sun; He sighs! the sigh earth's deep foundation shakes. If in His love so terrible, what then His wrath inflamed?
** Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 271.
* Accept a miracle instead of wit,— See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.
** Lines written with the Diamond Pencil of Lord Chesterfield; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
* Time elaborately thrown away.
** The Last Day, book i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
* There buds the promise of celestial worth.
** The Last Day, book iii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
* And friend received with thumps upon the back.
** Universal Passion; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

### Love of Fame (1725-1728)

* When the Law shows her teeth, but dares not bite.
** Satire I, l. 17.
* The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.
** Satire I, l. 51.
* Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.
** Satire I, l. 89.
* Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.
** Satire I, l. 145.
* They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt instead of their discharge.
** Satire I, l. 147.
* None think the great unhappy but the great.
** Satire I, l. 238.
* Unlearned men of books assume the care, As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.
** Satire II, l. 83.
* The booby father craves a booby son, And by Heaven’s blessing thinks himself undone.
** Satire II, l. 165.
* Where Nature’s end of language is declin’d, And men talk only to conceal the mind.
** Satire II, l. 207.
* Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
** Satire II, l. 282.
* And waste their music on the savage race.
** Satire V, l. 228.
* With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue, Forever most divinely in the wrong.
** Satire VI, l. 105.
* For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme, Nor take her tea without a strategem.
** Satire VI, l. 187.
* Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.
** Satire VI, l. 208.
* One to destroy, is murder by the law; And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; To murder thousands takes a specious name, War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.
** Satire VII, l. 55.
* How commentators each dark passage shun, And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
** Satire VII, l. 97.

### Night-Thoughts (1742–1745)
#### Night I

* Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
** Line 1.
* Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world.
** Line 18.
* Creation sleeps! 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
** Line 23.
* On reason build resolve, that column of true majesty in man.
** Line 30.
* The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss.
** Line 55.
* Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.
** Line 67.
* An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there.
** Line 89.
* To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
** Line 154.
* 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.
** Line 212.
* Be wise today; 'tis madness to defer.
** Line 390.
* Procrastination is the thief of time.
** Line 393.
* 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.
** Line 417.
* All men think all men mortal but themselves.
** Line 424.

#### Night II

* He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
** Line 24.
* And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
** Line 51.
* Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
** Line 90.
* "I've lost a day!"—the prince who nobly cried, Had been an emperor without his crown.
** Line 99. Suetonius says of the Emperor Titus: "Once at supper, reflecting that he had done nothing for any that day, he broke out into that memorable and justly admired saying, ‘My friends, I have lost a day!'" Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars (translation by Alexander Thomson).
* Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
** Line 112.
* Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.
** Line 160.
* The spirit walks of every day deceased.
** Line 180.
* Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, Hell threatens.
** Line 292.
* Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.
** Line 334.
* 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
** Line 376.
* Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun.
** Line 466.
* A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
** Line 571.
* Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new (Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.
** Line 582.
* How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
** Line 602.
* The chamber where the good man meets his fate Is privileg’d beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
** Line 633.
* A death-bed ’s a detector of the heart.
** Line 641.
* Virtue alone has majesty in death.
** Line 650.

#### Night III

* Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.
** Line 63.
* Beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.
** Line 81.
* Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there; Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.
** Line 104.
* Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight,—a naked human heart.
** Line 226.
* ... life is most enjoy'd when courted least, most worth, when disesteemed,...
** Line 410

#### Night IV

* The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave, The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.
** Line 10.
* Man makes a death which Nature never made.
** Line 15.
* And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.
** Line 17.
* Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
** Line 71.
* Man wants little, nor that little long.
** Line 118.
* A God all mercy is a God unjust.
** Line 233.
* ’Tis impious in a good man to be sad
** Line 676.
* A Christian is the highest style of man.
** Line 788.
* Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
** Line 843.

#### Night V

* By night an atheist half believes a God.
** Line 177.
* Less base the fear of death than fear of life.
** Line 441.
* A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
** Line 596.
* Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhal'd and went to heaven.
** Line 600.
* We see time’s furrows on another’s brow, And death intrench’d, preparing his assault; How few themselves in that just mirror see!
** Line 627.
* Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
** Line 661.
* While man is growing, life is in decrease; And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb. Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
** Line 717.
* That life is long which answers life's great end.
** Line 773.
* The man of wisdom is the man of years.
** Line 775.
* Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.
** Line 1011.

#### Night VI

* Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.
** Line 128.
* 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.
** Line 309.
* Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
** Line 399.
* Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.
** Line 519.
* And all may do what has by man been done.
** Line 606.

#### Night VII

* The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
** Line 496.
* What ardently we wish we soon believe.
** Line 1311.

#### Night VIII

* Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
** Line 215.
* Truth never was indebted to a lie.
** Line 587.
* Prayer ardent opens heaven.
** Line 721.
* The house of laughter makes a house of woe.
** Line 757.
* A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
** Line 793.
* To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.
** Line 1045.

#### Night IX

* Final Ruin fiercely drives Her plowshare o'er creation.
** Line 167. Compare Robert Burns, To a Mountain Daisy: "Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate / Full on thy bloom".
* 'T is elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand,— Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.
** Line 644.
* An undevout astronomer is mad.
** Line 771.
* The course of Nature is the art of God.
** Line 1267.

### Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

* Born Originals - how comes it to pass that we die Copies?
** London 1759, p. 42 books.google
* There is something in Poetry beyond Prose-reason; there are Mysteries in it not to be explained, but admired; which render mere Prose-men Infidels to their Divinity.
** London 1759, p. 28 books.google
* For Rules, like Crutches, are a needful Aid to the Lame, tho' an impediment to the Strong.
** London 1759, p. 28 books.google

## Misattributed

* By all means use some time to be alone.
** A slight misquotation of George Herbert "The Church Porch", line 145: "By all means use sometimes to be alone", in The Temple (1633).
* The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.
** Widely attributed to Edward Young, but in fact written by E. B. White in Harper's Magazine (December 1940), and reprinted in his One Man's Meat (1942).
* They only babble who practise not reflection.
** From Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Pizarro, Act I, sc. i.
* Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.
** This is a quotation from "The Old Man's Relapse", a poem addressed to Edward Young, but written by Lord Melcombe.

## External links

* Edward Young, The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Vol. I, Vol. II, London: Bell and Daldy, 1858.