Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison Quotes
519 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who may differ from him in political principles.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Our Grubstreet biographers…watch for the death of a great man, like so many undertakers, on purpose to make a penny of him.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
In the founders of great families, titles or attributes of honor are generally correspondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in their descendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continue, but the intrinsic value is frequently lost.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
The wildness of those compositions which go by the name of essays.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Most of our fellow-subjects are guided either by the prejudice of education or by a deference to the judgment of those who perhaps in their own hearts disapprove the opinions which they industriously spread among the multitude.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Fame is a good so wholly foreign to our natures that we have no faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any organ in the body to relish it; an object of desire placed out of the possibility of fruition.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, I think the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with neglect on the censures and applauses of the multitude.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Fain would I Raphael's godlike art rehearse,
And show th' immortal labours in my verse,
Where from themingled strength of shade and light
A new creation rises to my sight,
Such heavenly figures from his pencil flow,
So warm with life his blended colours glow.
From theme to theme with secret pleasure tost,
Amidst the soft variety I 'm lost:
Here pleasing airs my ravish'd soul confound
With circling notes and labyrinths of sound;
Here domes and temples rise in distant views,
And opening palaces invite my Muse.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public: a man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behaviour is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Plutarch says very finely that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself; and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings,
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection
That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her,
And imitates her actions where she is not:
It is not to be sported with.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Who rant by note, and through the gamut rage; in songs and airs express their martial fire; combat in trills, and in a fugue expire.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
There is nothing more requisite in business than dispatch.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
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.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
O Dormer, how can I behold thy fate,
And not the wonders of thy youth relate;
How can I see the gay, the brave, the young,
Fall in the cloud of war, and lie unsung!
In joys of conquest he resigns his breath,
And, filled with England's glory, smiles in death.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.
Joseph Addison
Source
Report...
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
Joseph Addison
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
...
21
Quote of the day
Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.
Ogden Nash
Joseph Addison
Creative Commons
Born:
May 1, 1672
Died:
June 17, 1719
(aged 47)
Bio:
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison.
Known for:
Cato, a Tragedy
The Spectator
Essays of Joseph Addison
The works of Joseph Addison
Cato, a tragedy in five acts
Most used words:
man
life
mind
nature
virtue
soul
love
sense
kind
mankind
time
day
heart
consider
persons
Joseph Addison on Wikipedia
Joseph Addison works on Gutenberg Project
Joseph Addison works on Wikisource
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Joseph Addison Quotes
Joseph Addison Short Quotes
British Politician Quotes
Politician Quotes
17th-century Politician Quotes
Related People
Richard Steele
British Politician
Samuel Johnson
English Lexicographer
Thomas Gray
English Historian
Alexander Pope
English Poet
Daniel Defoe
English Journalist
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes