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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 Joseph Young -
On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
Edward Joseph Young
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A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.
Edward Joseph Young -
Of all the documents that have come down from antiquity, Genesis three is the only one that explains how the world became sinful and evil.
Edward Joseph Young -
Death joins us to the great majority.
Edward Joseph Young -
He that's ungrateful, has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
Edward Joseph Young -
A prince indebted is a fortune made.
Edward Joseph Young -
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.
Edward Joseph Young
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How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!
Edward Joseph Young -
But love, like wine, gives a tumultuous bliss, Heighten'd indeed beyond all mortal pleasures; But mingles pangs and madness in the bowl.
Edward Joseph Young -
If he provokes a war, his empire shakes, And all her lofty glories nod to ruin.
Edward Joseph Young -
Pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.
Edward Joseph Young -
Men are but men; we did not make ourselves.
Edward Joseph Young -
The clouds may drop down titles and estates, wealth may seek us; but wisdom must be sought.
Edward Joseph Young
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Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
Edward Joseph Young -
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, The twilight of our day, the vestibule; Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death, Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us embryos of existence free.
Edward Joseph Young -
High stations tumult, but not bliss create; None think the Great unhappy, but the Great.
Edward Joseph Young -
Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure? When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight, As lands and cities, with their glittering spires, To the poor shatter'd bark by sudden storm Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there? Will toys amuse? No: thrones will then be toys, And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.
Edward Joseph Young -
What is a miracle?--'Tis a reproach, 'Tis an implicit satire on mankind; And while it satisfies, it censures too.
Edward Joseph Young -
To Virtue's humblest son let none prefer Vice, tho' descended from the Conqueror.
Edward Joseph Young
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At thirty a 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.
Edward Joseph Young -
Can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
Edward Joseph Young -
Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts; Inters celestial hopes without one sigh. Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here pinions all his wishes.
Edward Joseph Young -
He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff, But 'tis so very foul, it won't go off.
Edward Joseph Young