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Joseph Addison Quotes about Writing

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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

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.

Joseph Addison
Writing, Lapses, Genius
Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”, p.454

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.

Joseph Addison
Writing, Ambitious, Literature
Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd (1811). “The Works: In Six Volumes”, p.84

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.

Joseph Addison
Writing, People, Excellence
Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison (1829). “The Tatler and the Guardian: Complete in One Volume, with Notes, and a General Index”, p.388

A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

Joseph Addison
Reading, Writing, Men
Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1832). “The British Essayists: Containing the Spectator, with Notes and General Index, and the Tatler and Guardian, with Notes and General Index”

The world is so full of ill-nature that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write.

Joseph Addison
Writing, People, World
Sir Richard Steele, Alexander Chalmers, Joseph Addison (1806). “The Spectator”, p.93

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.

Joseph Addison
Book, Writing, Men

Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense, he says, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted.

Joseph Addison
Writing, Two, Giving
Joseph Addison (1853). “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.624

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

Joseph Addison
Writing, Men, Ordinary
Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1855). “The Spectator”, p.8

The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.

Joseph Addison
Art, Writing, Eye
Joseph Addison (1811). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.401

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