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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index Y > Edward Young Quotes

Edward Young
(Jun 1683 - 5 Apr 1765)

English writer.

Science Quotes by Edward Young (14 quotes)

A God all mercy is a God unjust.
— Edward Young
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 144
Science quotes on:  |  God (776)  |  Mercy (12)  |  Unjust (6)

An undevout astronomer is mad.
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 9, 260.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Mad (54)  |  Undevout (2)

And shall an atom of this atom world
Mutter the theme of heaven?
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 4, 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Theme (17)  |  World (1850)

Distinguisht Link in Being’s endless Chain!
Midway from Nothing to the Deity!
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 1, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Chain (51)  |  Deity (22)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Endless (60)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Midway (4)  |  Nothing (1000)

Has Matter innate Motion? Then each Atom,
Asserting its indisputable Right
To dance, would form an Universe of Dust.
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 9, 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Atom (381)  |  Dance (35)  |  Dust (68)  |  Form (976)  |  Indisputable (8)  |  Innate (14)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motion (320)  |  Right (473)  |  Universe (900)

Has Matter more than Motion? Has it Thought,
Judgment, and Genius? Is it deeply learn’d
In Mathematics? Has it fram’d such Laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal?—
If so, how each sage Atom laughs at me,
Who think a Clod inferior to a Man!
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 9, 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Clod (3)  |  Genius (301)  |  Guess (67)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Sage (25)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)

How science dwindles, and how volumes swell,
How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun!
— Edward Young
Edward Young and John Mitford, 'Love of Fame, the Universal Passion', Satire VII, The Poetical Works of Edward Young (1858), Vol. 2, 136. In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 162:24.
Science quotes on:  |  Candle (32)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dwindle (6)  |  Passage (52)  |  Sun (407)

Is it in Time to hide Eternity?
And why not in an Atom on the Shore,
To cover Ocean? or a Mote, the Sun?
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 6, 127. [A mote means a speck - Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Cover (40)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Hide (70)  |  Mote (3)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Shore (25)  |  Speck (25)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)

It calls Devotion! genuine growth of night!
Devotion! Daughter of Astronomy!
An undevout astronomer is mad!
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 9, 260.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Call (781)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Growth (200)  |  Mad (54)  |  Madness (33)  |  Undevout (2)

Look Nature thro’, ’tis neat Gradation all.
By what minute Degrees her Scale ascends!
Each middle Nature join’d at each Extreme,
To that above it join’d, to that beneath.
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 6, 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Degree (277)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Join (32)  |  Look (584)  |  Middle (19)  |  Minute (129)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Scale (122)

No Single Atom, once in Being, lost,…
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 6, 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Loss (117)  |  Single (365)

Of plain, sound sense, life’s current coin is made; With that we drive the most substantial trade.
— Edward Young
In Hialmer Day Gould, New Practical Spelling (1905), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Coin (13)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Current (122)  |  Drive (61)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Plain (34)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sound (187)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Trade (34)

Read Nature; Nature is a Friend to Truth;
Nature is Christian; preaches to Mankind.
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 4, 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Christian (44)  |  Friend (180)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Preach (11)  |  Read (308)  |  Truth (1109)

Say’st thou, “The Course of Nature governs All?”
The Course of Nature is the Art of GOD.
— Edward Young
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 9, 273.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Course (413)  |  God (776)  |  Govern (66)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Science And Religion (337)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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