Joseph Addison Quotes

519 Sourced Quotes

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.

Joseph Addison
How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country!

Joseph Addison
Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

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

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

Joseph Addison
There is not so variable a thing in Nature as a lady's head-dress.

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

Joseph Addison
The schoolboy counts the time till the return of the holidays; the minor longs to be of age; the lover is impatient till he is married.

Joseph Addison
The consciousness of being loved softens the keenest pang even at the moment of parting; yea, even the eternal farewell is robbed of half of its bitterness when uttered in accents that breathe love to the last sigh.

Joseph Addison
A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants; and secondly, how much more unhappy he might be than he really is.

Joseph Addison
There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm.

Joseph Addison
Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Joseph Addison
Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.

Joseph Addison
On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgment must expect my fate.

Joseph Addison
In the loss of an object we do not proportion our grief to the real value it bears, but to the value our fancies set upon it.

Joseph Addison
Virtues that shun the day and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calm of life.

Joseph Addison
I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.

Joseph Addison
Notwithstanding that natural love in brutes is much more violent and intense than in rational creatures, Providence has taken care that it should be no longer troublesome to the parent than it is useful to the young; for so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother withdraws her fondness, and leaves them to provide for themselves.

Joseph Addison
The ideal man bears the accidents of life
With dignity and grace, the best of circumstances.

Joseph Addison
The very first discovery of beauty strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties.

Joseph Addison
A contemplation of God's works, a generous concern for the good of mankind, and the unfeigned exercise of humility only, denominate men great and glorious.

Joseph Addison
It is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards with no conversation but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short?

Joseph Addison
These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.

Joseph Addison
There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion; it is this, indeed, which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. Without it, learning is pedantry, and wit impertinence ; virtue itself looks like weakness; the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.

Joseph Addison
Through all Eternity to Thee
A joyful Song I'll raise,
For oh! Eternity's too short
To utter all thy Praise.

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. It shows virtue in the fairest light; takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice; and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.

Joseph Addison
The first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.

Joseph Addison
Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.

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

Joseph Addison
Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.

Joseph Addison