Joseph addison quotes

Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. Thank you.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.

The man who will live above his present circumstances, is in great danger of soon living beneath them; or as the Italian proverb says, "The man that lives by hope, will die by despair.

The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.

Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.

Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man.

Love, anger, pride and avarice all visibly move in those little orbs.

When a woman comes to her class, she does not employ her time in making herself look more advantageously what she really is, but endeavours to be as much another creature as she possibly can. Whether this happens because they stay so long and attend their work so diligently that they forget the faces and persons, which they first sat down with, or whatever it is, they seldom rise from the toilet the same woman they appeared when they began to dress

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

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 man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.

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

It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

It is impossible for authors to discover beauties in one another's works; they have eyes only for spots and blemishes.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

Content thyself to be obscurely good.

Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.

Look what a little vain dust we are!

There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.

Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite.

Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

Though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious.

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

Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.

I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend.

There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

Those who were skillful in Anatomy among the Ancients, concluded from the outward and inward Make of an Human Body, that it was the Work of a Being transcendently Wise and Powerful. As the World grew more enlightened in this Art, their Discoveries gave them fresh Opportunities of admiring the Conduct of Providence in the Formation of an Human Body.

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.

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

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

Honor's a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.

Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

Wit is the fetching of congruity out of incongruity.

Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.

Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.

There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.

The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate in which they undergo.

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!

The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.

True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.

Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.

This not in mortals to command success, but we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.

It is ridiculous for any man to criticize on the works of another, who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.

There is nothing which strengthens faith more than the observance of morality.

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

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.

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

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.

We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull.

Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

The productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertences, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author which are scrupulously exact, and conformable to all the rules of correct writing.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

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

The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.

Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.

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

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck. A good character, good habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all ill-luck that fools ever dreamed.

Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.

Among the English authors, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch the weak, superstitious part of his readers' imagination, and made him capable of succeeding where he had nothing to support him besides the strength of his own genius.

Were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity; the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

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

Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.

An evil intention perverts the best actions, and makes them sins.

There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being,--that truth is His body and light His shadow. According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.

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

A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.

The ways of heaven are dark and intricate, Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors; Our understanding traces them in vain, Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search; Nor sees with how much art the windings run, Nor where the regular confusion ends.

The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.

Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish that, when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens the water about him till he becomes invisible.

Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.

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

When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? My Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.

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

Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion--a form of knowledge without the power of it.

I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.

Encourage innocent amusement.

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

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

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.