Joseph Addison Quotes on Man (41 Quotes)

When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

Pray consider what a figure a man would make in the republic of letters.

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

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.

Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire.

Method is not less requisite in conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood

It must be so, Plato, thou reasonest well Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction 'T is the divinity that stirs within us 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity thou pleasing, dreadful thought.

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

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

When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

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.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.

Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer.

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

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

To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

Sir Roger told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgement rashly, that much might be said on both sides.

No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action.

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.

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

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

It is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards with no conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short.

Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.

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!

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. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant accommodates itself to the meanest capacities silences the loud and clamorous, and cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens confounded their statesmen struck their orators dumb and at length argued them out of all their liberties.

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.

There are many shining qualities on the mind of man but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry wit, impertinence virtue itself looks like weakness and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

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

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

A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

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.

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

Learning is pedantry, wit, impertinence, virtue itself looked like weakness, and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.