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Joseph Addison Quotes - Page 3

All Quotes Affection Age Ambition Appearance Art Atheism Beauty Bravery Character Children Community Compassion Contentment Country Courage Criticism Critics Death Design Desire Destiny Earth Education Enthusiasm Eternity Evil Exercise Fame Fate Flattery Friends Friendship Funny Genius Giving Glory God Gold Gratitude Greatness Grief Happiness Health Heart Heaven Honesty Honor Hope Human Nature Humanity Humility Husband Imagination Imperfection Innocence Inspirational Inspiring Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Laughter Liberty Life Life And Death Literature Losing Love Lying Mankind Marriage Modesty Morality Mountain Music Nature Opportunity Pain Passion Perfection Philosophy Plato Praise Prejudice Pride Prosperity Quality Reading Religion Running Safety Satire Science Serenity Silence Sorrow Soul Success Suffering Sunshine Talent Time Tragedy Understanding Violence Virtue War Weakness Wine Wisdom Wit Work Writing

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

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

Music, Wisdom, Heaven

'A Song for St Cecilia's Day'

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

Justice, Virtue, Godlike

Joseph Addison (1839). “Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste”, p.171

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.

Fear, Men, Evil

Joseph Addison (1858). “Works, Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition: Withletters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.505

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

Morning, Tea, Bread

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”, p.129

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

Christian, Men, Mind

Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd (1811). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, a New Ed., with Notes”, p.25

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

Heart, Pride, Men

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.

Imagination, Perfection, Support

Joseph Addison (1975). “Essays in Criticism and Literary Theory”, Harlan Davidson

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.

Anniversary, Two, Perfection

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1860). “The Spectator: A New Edition”, p.583

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.

World, May, Morality

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.408

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

Favors, Mankind, Ingenuity

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.

Nature, Miracle, Quality

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1804). “Selections from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder: Selections from the Tatler. Selections from the Spectator [no.5-150”, p.106

Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.

Stupid, People, Antidote

"The Drummer". Play by Joseph Addison, 1716.

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.

Inspirational, Happiness, You Make Me Happy

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.

Sight, Ideas, Giving

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.480

Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.

Understanding, Sensitivity, Ready

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

Ignorance, Yield, Evil

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

Evil, Action, Sin

Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd, Henry George Bohn (1872). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.92

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.

Friends, Men, Thinking

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1826). “The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index”, p.293

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

Mind, Affection, Virtue

Joseph Addison (1721). “The Spectator, no. 90-505”, p.611

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

Freedom, 4th Of July, Hands

Look what a little vain dust we are!

Dust, Looks, Littles

Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, William Makepeace Thackeray (1906). “English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century: Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith”

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.

Life, Dream, Hope

Joseph Addison (1839). “Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste”, p.151

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

Jealousy, Pain, Men

Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd (1811). “The Spectator”, p.356

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

Ornaments, Literature, Modesty

Joseph Addison (1721). “THE WORKS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq; In FOUR VOLUMES.: VOLUME the THIRD”, p.218

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.

Drinking, Glasses, Enemy

Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steel (1858). “The Spectator”, p.252

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