Joseph Addison Quotes (205 Quotes)


    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


    The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.



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


    The Gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw our into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life.

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

    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.

    My voice is still for war. Gods can a Roman senate long debate Which of the two to choose, slavery or death.

    I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: "What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me."

    Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

    And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

    From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.

    What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.

    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.

    Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio's ghost walks unaveng'd amongst us.

    I have often thought, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of Winter.

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

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

    Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated.

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

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

    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.

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

    Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

    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.

    There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than the instinct of animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.

    Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

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

    He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.



    The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life... Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

    Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.

    There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

    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.

    There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude.

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

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

    Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense. The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex.

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

    I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills which (as he told the country people) were very good against an earthquake.

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

    There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.

    Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.

    Man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and next to escape the censures of the world. If the last interfere with the first it should be entirely neglected. But if not, there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see its own approbation seconded by the applause of the public.

    Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity

    Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.


    Related Authors


    Voltaire - Pablo Neruda - O. Henry - Niccolo Machiavelli - Thomas Paine - Milan Kundera - Herbert Kaufman - George Axelrod - Denis Waitley - Bram Stoker


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