Joseph Addison Quotes & Sayings

The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune. — Joseph Addison

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

Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment. — Joseph Addison

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind, than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part of life. — Joseph Addison

Facts are plain spoken; hopes and figures are its aversion. — Joseph Addison

Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them. — Joseph Addison

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency, especially when it regards religion or party. In either of these cases, though a man perhaps does but his duty in changing his side, he not only makes himself hated by those he left, but is seldom heartily esteemed by those he comes over to. — Joseph Addison

Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them. — Joseph Addison

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

There is no defense against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness. — Joseph Addison

Amidst the soft variety I'm lost. — Joseph Addison

It is easier for an artful Man, who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love hath ten thousand Griefs, Impatiencies and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits. — Joseph Addison

In my Lucia's absence Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden; I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me. — Joseph Addison

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

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us. — Joseph Addison

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

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

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. — Joseph Addison

Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage. — Joseph Addison

This party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. — Joseph Addison

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. — Joseph Addison

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side. — Joseph Addison

When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, ... or holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. — Joseph Addison

If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

In rising sighs and falling tears. — Joseph Addison

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

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

Let echo, too, perform her part, Prolonging every note with art; And in a low expiring strain, Play all the comfort o'er again. — Joseph Addison

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

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship. — Joseph Addison

Temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor. — Joseph Addison

Whether dark presages of the night proceed from any latent power of the soul during her abstraction, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a dispute. — Joseph Addison

No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. Thank you. — Joseph Addison

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master. — Joseph Addison

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

I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless. — Joseph Addison

For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground. — Joseph Addison

Talk not of love: thou never knew'st its force. — Joseph Addison

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

When all thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view I'm lost, in wonder, love and praise. — Joseph Addison

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station. — Joseph Addison

There is no talent so pernicious as eloquence to those who have it under command. — Joseph Addison

In that disputable point of persecuting men for conscience sake, I see such dreadful consequences rising, I would be as fully convinced of the truth of it, as a mathematical demonstration, before I would venture to act upon it or make it a part of my religion. — Joseph Addison

It was a saying of an ancient philosopher, which I find some of our writers have ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, who perhaps might have taken occasion to repeat it, that a good face is a letter of recommendation. — Joseph Addison

Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings. — Joseph Addison

For ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine. — Joseph Addison

Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. — Joseph Addison

Every wife ought to answer for her man. If the husband be engaged in a seditious club, or drinks mysterious healths, or be frugal of his candles on a rejoicing night, let her look to him and keep him out of harm's way; or the world will be apt to say, she has a mind to be a widow before her time. She ought, in such cases, to exert the authority of the curtain lecture; and if she finds him of a rebellious disposition, to tame him, as they do birds of prey, by dinning him in the ears all night long. — Joseph Addison

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts
or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

Troops of heroes undistinguished die. — Joseph Addison

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care; His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye. — Joseph Addison

The ungrown glories of his beamy hair. — Joseph Addison

Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves. — Joseph Addison

It is pleasant to see a notorious profligate seized with a concern for religion, and converting his spleen into zeal. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor. — Joseph Addison

An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes. — Joseph Addison

It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belongto his Neighbour. — Joseph Addison

There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and?there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them. — Joseph Addison

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity. — Joseph Addison

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest. — Joseph Addison

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

Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment, but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature; I must confess I would allow it no better Quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his Common-wealth. — Joseph Addison

Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain. — Joseph Addison

The spacious firmament on high,
And all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves; but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion. — Joseph Addison

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. — Joseph Addison

Let freedom never perish in your hands. — Joseph Addison

If gratitude, when exerted towards another, naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man, it exalts the soul into rapture when it is employed on this great object of gratitude to the beneficent Being who has given us everything we already possess, and from whom we expect everything we yet hope for. — Joseph Addison

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

Our friends don't see our faults, or conceal them, or soften them. — Joseph Addison

My voice is still for war. — Joseph Addison

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man. — Joseph Addison

When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition. — Joseph Addison

Though there is a benevolence due to all mankind, none can question but a superior degree of it is to be paid to a father, a wife, or child. In the same manner, though our love should reach to the whole species, a greater proportion of it should exert itself towards that community in which Providence has placed us. This is our proper sphere of action, the province allotted us for the exercise of our civil virtues, and in which alone we have opportunities of expressing our goodwill to mankind. — Joseph Addison

The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. — Joseph Addison

The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections. — Joseph Addison

It has been said in praise of some men, that they could take whole hours together upon anything; but it must be owned to the honor of the other sex that there are many among them who can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I have known a woman branch out into a long extempore dissertation on the edging of a petticoat, and chide her servant for breaking a china cup, in all the figures of rhetoric. — Joseph Addison

Charity is the perfection and ornament of religion. — Joseph Addison

A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it. — Joseph Addison

The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them. — Joseph Addison

It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height. — Joseph Addison

There are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity. — Joseph Addison

There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. — Joseph Addison

A few persons of an odious and despised country could not have filled the world with believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials from the divine person who sent them on such a message. — Joseph Addison

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

Music raises in the mind of the hearer great conceptions: it strengthens and advances praise into rapture. — Joseph Addison

There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride. — Joseph Addison

Virgil has very finely touched upon the female passion for dress and shows, in the character of Camilla; who though she seems to have shaken off all the other weaknesses of her sex, is still described as a woman in this particular. — Joseph Addison

A friend exaggerates a man's virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes. — Joseph Addison

Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul, Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee, Bright'ning each other! thou art all divine! — Joseph Addison

A man with great talents, but void of discretion, is like Polyphemus in the fable, strong and blind, endued with an irresistible force, which for want of sight is of no use to him. — Joseph Addison

The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art. — Joseph Addison