Joseph Addison quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison Famous Quotes & Sayings

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Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.

The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections.

Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.

The great number of the Jews furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible.

Wine displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

Let echo, too, perform her part, Prolonging every note with art; And in a low expiring strain, Play all the comfort o'er again.

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.

All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter

A man's reputation draws eyes upon him that will narrowly inspect every part of him.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

The post of honour is a private station.

Who rant by note, and through the gamut rage; in songs and airs express their martial fire; combat in trills, and in a fugue expire.

Reading is to the mind what exerise is to the body.

If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.

Cleanliness may be defined to be the emblem of purity of mind.

What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?

T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

The peacock in all his pride does not display half the colors that appear in the garments of a British lady when she is dressed.

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.

Charity is the perfection and ornament of religion.

A great large book is a great evil.

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy.

Must one rash word, the infirmity of age, throw down the merit of my better years?

Riches are apt to betray a man into arrogance.

It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour.

There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculations.

Health and happiness give rise to each other.

In rising sighs and falling tears.

They were a people so primitive they did not know how to get money, except by working for it.

There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride.

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain.

Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

The very first discovery of beauty strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties.

The man who lives by hope, will die by hunger.

Heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but the natural effect, of a religious life.

We make provisions for this life as if it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to have a beginning.

Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.

Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.

Many actions calculated to procure fame are not conducive to ultimate happiness.

True fortitude is seen in great exploits
That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides;
And all else is tow'ring phrenzy and distraction.

Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.

A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with neglect on the censures and applauses of the multitude.

Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.

The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant.

He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.

On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait, and from your judgment must expect my fate.

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.

Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love, With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art.

True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind, admit of all true pleasures, and even procure for us the highest.

Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man.

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.

My death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me.

The Infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian Cane.

All of heaven we have below.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

Music, among those who were styled the chosen people, was a religious art.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use.

It is wonderful to see persons of sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards.

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

T is the Divinity that stirs within us.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

From hence, let fierce contending nations know, what dire effects from civil discord flow.

Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.

The spacious firmament on high,
And all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.

Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

Look what a little vain dust we are!

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

A vast space naturally raises in my thoughts the idea of an Almighty Being.

We see the pernicious effects of luxury in the ancient Romans, who immediately found themselves poor as soon as this vice got footing among them.

Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods.