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Night-Thoughts
Edward YoungFamous Edward Young Quotes
“And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 17.
Edward Young Quotes about death
“Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites,
Hell threatens.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 292.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 627.
“Life is the desert, life the solitude;
Death joins us to the great majority.”
The Revenge, Act IV, sc. i.
“Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 1011.
“Less base the fear of death than fear of life.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 441.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night III, Line 104.
Edward Young Quotes about life
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 633.
“Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new
(Not such was his) is neither strong nor pure.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 582.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 717.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 23.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 160.
Edward Young: Trending quotes
“The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 55.
“To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VIII, Line 1045.
“Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 466.
Edward Young Quotes
“Final Ruin fiercely drives
Her plowshare o'er creation.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IX, Line 167. Compare Robert Burns, To a Mountain Daisy: "Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate / Full on thy bloom".
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 271.
Satire VII, l. 55.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“An undevout astronomer is mad.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IX, Line 771.
“The booby father craves a booby son,
And by Heaven’s blessing thinks himself undone.”
Satire II, l. 165.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“On reason build resolve,
that column of true majesty in man.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 30.
“Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 843.
The Brothers (1753), Act V, scene i.
Conjectures on Original Composition (1759) p. 28.
“Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night III, Line 63.
“Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 334.
“With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue,
Forever most divinely in the wrong.”
Satire VI, l. 105.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.”
Satire II, l. 282.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Time elaborately thrown away.”
The Last Day, book i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“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).
Misattributed
“The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 10.
“Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VI, Line 399.
“None think the great unhappy but the great.”
Satire I, l. 238.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhal'd and went to heaven.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 600.
“"I've lost a day!"—the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, 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).
“Beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night III, Line 81.
“Tis impious in a good man to be sad”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 676.
“T is elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand,—
Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IX, Line 644.
“Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 112.
“Titles are marks of honest men, and wise;
The fool or knave that wears a title lies.”
Satire I, l. 145.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“The man that blushes is not quite a brute.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VII, Line 496.
“Man makes a death which Nature never made.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 15.
“Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 376.
“For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme,
Nor take her tea without a strategem.”
Satire VI, l. 187.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 51.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 90.
“Truth never was indebted to a lie.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VIII, Line 587.
“How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.”
Satire VII, l. 97.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“A soul without reflection, like a pile
Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 596.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 18.
“Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.”
Satire I, l. 89.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue.”
The Revenge, Act V, sc. ii.
“An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 89.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 212.
“Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt,
And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.”
To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 277.
“A God all mercy is a God unjust.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 233.
“When the Law shows her teeth, but dares not bite.”
Satire I, l. 17.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Procrastination is the thief of time.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 393.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 417.
“And friend received with thumps upon the back.”
Universal Passion; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“To waft a feather or to drown a fly.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 154.
