“How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!”
Source: Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality
“The bell strikes One. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours.”
Source: Night thoughts on life, death and immortality: With a memoir of the author, a critical view of his writings, and explanatory notes
“A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.”
Source: Busiris, King of Egypt. A tragedy, etc
“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.”
Source: The complete poetical works of Edward Young. With life
“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.”
Source: The Poems of Edward Young
“When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more.”
Source: The complete poetical works of Edward Young. With life
“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!”
Source: The Revenge: A Tragedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. By His Majesty's Servants
“Some go to Church, proud humbly to repent, And come back much more guilty than they went: One way they look, another way they steer, Pray to the Gods; but would have Mortals hear; And when their sins they set sincerely down, They'll find that their Religion has been one.”
Source: The complete poetical works of Edward Young. With life
“Who gives an empire, by the gift defeats All end of giving; and procures contempt Instead of gratitude.”
Source: The Works of the Rev. Dr. Edward Young
“This vast and solid earth, that blazing sun, Those skies, thro' which it rolls, must all have end. What then is man? The smallest part of nothing.”
Source: THE ENGLISH THEATRE IN EIGHT VOLUMES: CONTAINING The Most Valuable PLAYS Which Have Been Acted on the LONDON STAGE.. REVENGE. By Dr. Young. RIVAL QUEENS. By Mr. Lee. THEODOSIUS, or the FORCE of LOVE. By Mr. Lee. VENICE PRESERVED. By Mr. Otway. ZARA. By A. Hill. Esq