Quote#Humour & Wit
Accept a miracle instead of wit,—
Quote byEdward Young · 1683–1765
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Lines written with the Diamond Pencil of Lord Chesterfield; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)..
English (original)
Accept a miracle instead of wit,— See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.
— Edward Young
More from Edward Young
Life is the desert, life the solitude; Death joins us to the great majority.
In records that defy the tooth of time.
Great let me call him, for he conquered me.
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.
Creation sleeps! 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, With whom revenge is virtue.