Frasi di Edward Young

“Tutti gli uomini credono tutti gli uomini mortali, tranne se stessi.”

“La notte, cupa dea del trono d'ebano, | nella sua maestà senza raggi, | ora protende sopra un mondo assopito | il suo scettro di piombo.”

“Batte un'ora… Non contiamo le ore se non dopo che sono perdute.”

“Un Dio tutto misericordia è un Dio ingiusto.”

“Di notte un ateo crede quasi in un Dio.”

“Erede di glorie! inconsistente fantolino di polvere! immortale inerme! insetto infinito!”

“Il braccio di un angelo non potrà strapparmi alla tomba, ma legioni d'angeli non potranno confinarmici.”

“L'uomo che arrossisce non è del tutto un bruto.”

“Fabbrica troppo in basso chi fabbrica al di sotto delle stelle.”

“Il corso della Natura è l'arte di Dio.”

“Nella loro classica struttura le Notti di Young racchiudono una sostanza romantica ricca e varia, dominata dal pessimismo cristiano, espressa con una sincerità fremente, nervosa, che a tratti raggiunge impeti miltoniani e normalmente crea una suggestiva atmosfera d'angoscia e di mistero. A distanza di due secoli non occorre fare alcuno sforzo per rendersi conto dell'influsso che esercitarono su ogni letteratura europea.”

“And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.”

“Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!”

“The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.”

“Affliction is a good man's shining time.”

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

“To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.”

“Final Ruin fiercely drives
Her plowshare o'er creation.”

“He weeps! the falling drop puts out the sun; He sighs! the sigh earth's deep foundation shakes. If in His love so terrible, what then His wrath inflamed?”

“One to destroy, is murder by the law;
And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;
To murder thousands takes a specious name,
War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.”

“An undevout astronomer is mad.”

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

“On reason build resolve,
that column of true majesty in man.”

“Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites,
Hell threatens.”

“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.”

“Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.”

“As Love alone can exquisitely bless,
Love only feels the marvellous of pain;
Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.”

“The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileg’d beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.”

“There is something in Poetry beyond Prose-reason; there are Mysteries in it not to be explained, but admired.”

“Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen’d to the sun.”

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

“Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.”

“While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.”

“With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue,
Forever most divinely in the wrong.”

“Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.”

“Less base the fear of death than fear of life.”

“Time elaborately thrown away.”

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

“The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.”

“Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!”