Joseph Addison - Nature Quotes

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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
Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to their mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the nations of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another and be united together by their common interest.

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
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

Joseph Addison
Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

Joseph Addison
There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being, — that truth is His body and light His shadow. According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.

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

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
We find the Works of Nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art.

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
A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

Joseph Addison
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
There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

Joseph Addison
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

Joseph Addison
Guard thy heart on this weak side, where most our nature fails.

Joseph Addison
The Soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point:
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years:
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds!

Joseph Addison
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Joseph Addison
When Nature is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees that smile amidst all the rigors of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy.

Joseph Addison
Oh! liberty, thou goddess, heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty, leads thy wanton train;
Eas'd of her load, subjection grows more light
And poverty looks cheerful in the sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.

Joseph Addison
The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.

Joseph Addison
Nature has sometimes made a fool; but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.

Joseph Addison
Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life; Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend; Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.

Joseph Addison
There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.

Joseph Addison
I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.
Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me:
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

Joseph Addison
Men naturally warm and heady are transported with the greatest flush of good-nature.

Joseph Addison
What means this heaviness that hangs upon me?
This lethargy that creeps through all my senses?
Nature, oppress'd and harrass'd out with care,
Sinks down to rest.

Joseph Addison
Should the whole frame of Nature round him break,
In ruin and confusion hurled,
He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,
And stand secure amidst a falling world.

Joseph Addison
If there's a power above us,
(And that there is all nature cries aloud
Through all her works) he must delight in virtue.

Joseph Addison
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

Joseph Addison