Time & Perspective Quote by Edward Young

A brisk imperative dressed up as polite advice, Young's line makes solitude sound less like a retreat and more like basic hygiene. "By all means" carries the old-world air of a host ushering you to the best room in the house, but the invitation is pointed: take time alone because no one else is going to hand it to you. The phrasing assumes an audience busy with company, noise, obligation - people who treat aloneness as suspect, or at least inefficient.

Young is writing from an era when "retirement" could mean moral practice, not career failure: a cultivated withdrawal for prayer, self-scrutiny, and intellectual discipline. As a poet of the early 18th century (and, famously, of Night Thoughts), he knew how easily the social world flatters us into shallowness. The subtext is almost chastening: you are not as honest in public as you think. Alone time becomes a corrective lens, stripping off performance, gossip, and the seductions of belonging.

The sentence is spare, which is part of its power. There's no romantic mist around solitude, no promise of genius or serenity. It's closer to a commandment than a lifestyle tip. Young's intent isn't to make you interesting; it's to make you answerable - to yourself, to God, to whatever standard you claim when no one is watching. In a culture that prized manners and public reputation, his quiet push toward privacy reads as a countercultural act: step out of the crowd long enough to hear whether your life is actually yours.