Joseph Addison Quotes (205 Quotes)


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

    Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

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

    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.

    Should the whole frame of Nature round him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.


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

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

    Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them

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

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

    True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise

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

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

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

    A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

    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.

    To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

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

    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.

    Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

    A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts.

    Ideas in the mind are the transcript of the world words are the transcript of ideas And writing and printing are the transcript of words.

    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.

    Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

    It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.

    The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.

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

    Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Csar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.

    Admiration is a very short-lived passion that decays on growing familiar with its object unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries and kept alive by perpetual miracles rising up to its view.

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

    A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions that can possibly befall us.

    It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

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


    To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.

    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.

    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 While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

    A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections.

    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.

    Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

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

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

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

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


    More Joseph Addison Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Mind - Life - Nature - Sense & Perception - World - Pleasure - Vice & Virtue - Soul - Friendship - Love - Education - Wisdom & Knowledge - Sadness - Happiness - Countries - Mankind - Age - Joy & Excitement - View All Joseph Addison Quotations

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