Top 180 Edward Young Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “A death-bed’s a detector of the heart.”

— Edward Young

102. “Beautiful as sweet, And young as beautiful, and soft as young, And gay as soft, and innocent as gay!”

— Edward Young

103. “Who can take Death’s portrait? The tyrant never sat.”

— Edward Young

104. “Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.”

— Edward Young

105. “A God alone can comprehend a God.”

— Edward Young

106. “Of man’s miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, “That all men are about to live.””

— Edward Young

107. “Accept a miracle, instead of wit See two dull lines, with Stanhope’s pencil writ.”

— Edward Young

108. “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.”

— Edward Young

109. “There is nothing of which men are more liberal than their good advice, be their stock of it ever so small; because it seems to carry in it an intimation of their own influence, importance or worth.”

— Edward Young

110. “The booby father craves a booby son, And by Heaven’s blessing thinks himself undone.”

— Edward Young

111. “The first sure symptom of a mind in health Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home.”

— Edward Young

112. “Virtue alone has majesty in death.”

— Edward Young

113. “Praise, more divine than prayer; prayer points our ready path to heaven; praise is already there.”

— Edward Young

114. “The man that makes a character, makes foes.”

— Edward Young

115. “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.”

— Edward Young

116. “A Deity believed, is joy begun; A Deity adored, is joy advanced; A Deity beloved, is joy matured. Each branch of piety delight inspires.”

— Edward Young

117. “Who lives to Nature, rarely can be poor ; who lives to fancy, never can be rich.”

— Edward Young

118. “Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings but himselfThat hideous sight,-a naked human heart.”

— Edward Young

119. “Old men love novelties; the last arriv’d Still pleases best; the youngest steals their smiles.”

— Edward Young

120. “A foe to God ne’er was true friend to man, Some sinister intent taints all he does.”

— Edward Young

121. “And all may do what has by man been done.”

— Edward Young

122. “O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, Lost to the noble sallies of the soul! Who think it solitude to be alone.”

— Edward Young

123. “Final Ruin fiercely drives Her ploughshare o’er creation.”

— Edward Young

124. “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.”

— Edward Young

125. “A Christian is the highest style of man.”

— Edward Young

126. “Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid, A soldier should be modest as a maid.”

— Edward Young

127. “Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels; how heavily we drag the load of life!”

— Edward Young

128. “They only babble who practise not reflection.”

— Edward Young

129. “Wonder is involuntary praise.”

— Edward Young

130. “By all means use some time to be alone.”

— Edward Young

131. “Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.”

— Edward Young

132. “A foe to God was never true friend to man.”

— Edward Young

133. “There buds the promise of celestial worth.”

— Edward Young

134. “Men should press forward, in fame’s glorious chase; Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.”

— Edward Young

135. “As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain us least when exquisitely keen.”

— Edward Young

136. “Where Nature’s end of language is declin’d, And men talk only to conceal the mind.”

— Edward Young

137. “A dedication is a wooden leg.”

— Edward Young

138. “Polite diseases make some idiots vain, Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.”

— Edward Young

139. “With fame, in just proportion, envy grows.”

— Edward Young

140. “Nothing but what astonishes is true.”

— Edward Young

141. “The spirit walks of every day deceased.”

— Edward Young

142. “We wish our names eternally to live; Wild dream! which ne’er had haunted human thought, Had not our natures been eternal too.”

— Edward Young

143. “Horace appears in good humor while he censures, and therefore his censure has the more weight, as supposed to proceed from judgment and not from passion.”

— Edward Young

144. “Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.”

— Edward Young

145. “Britannia’s shame! There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul. Less base the fear of death than fear of life. O Britain! infamous for suicide.”

— Edward Young

146. “In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.”

— Edward Young

147. “Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!”

— Edward Young

148. “Read nature; nature is a friend to truth.”

— Edward Young

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

— Edward Young

150. “Who, for the poor renown of being smart, Would leave a sting within a brother’s heart?”

— Edward Young