Joseph Addison - Man Quotes

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Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

Joseph Addison
The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate in which they undergo.

Joseph Addison
I have somewhere met with the epitaph of a charitable man, which has very much pleased me. I cannot recollect the words, but the sense of it is to this purpose; What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.

Joseph Addison
A man's reputation draws eyes upon him that will narrowly inspect every part of him.

Joseph Addison
Is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?

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

Joseph Addison
To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

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

Joseph Addison
O ye powers that search
The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts,
If I have done amiss, impute it not!
The best may err, but you are good.

Joseph Addison
It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.

Joseph Addison
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
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
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
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.

Joseph Addison
A wealthy doctor who can help a poor man, and will not without a fee, has less sense of humanity than a poor ruffian, who kills a rich man to supply his necessities.

Joseph Addison
Others proclaim the infirmities of a great man with satisfaction and complacence, if they discover none of the like in themselves.

Joseph Addison
It is ridiculous for any man to criticise on the works of another who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.

Joseph Addison
I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and I believe he will often find that what he calls a zeal for his religion is either pride, interest, or ill-repute.

Joseph Addison
Upon the whole, a contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

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

Joseph Addison
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
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
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the nest from the gratification of them.

Joseph Addison
What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?

Joseph Addison
Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.

Joseph Addison
An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.

Joseph Addison
When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.

Joseph Addison
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
Should a writer single out and point his raillery at particular persons, or satirize the miserable, he might be sure of pleasing a great part of his readers, but must be a very ill man if he could please himself.

Joseph Addison
Sir Roger told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgement rashly, that much might be said on both sides.

Joseph Addison