Edward Young (3 July 1683 – 5 April 1765) was an English poet, best remembered for Night-Thoughts.
In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom; but he who reflects not, never reaps; has no harvest from it, but carries the burden of age without the wages of experience; nor knows himself old, but from his infirmities, the parish register, and the contempt of mankind. And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.
Amid my list of blessings infinite, stands this the foremost, "that my heart has bled. "
Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer.
And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.
Man wants but little, nor that little long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!
One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heaven.
The spider's most attenuated thread Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion, (so let me speak,) snatches the pen, and blots out nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality. The lettered world no longer consists of singulars: it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one.
Wonder is involuntary praise.
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!. . . Midway from nothing to the Deity!
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss.
Nature delights in progress; in advance.