Joseph Addison - The Spectator

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

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
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
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
We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.

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
The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature that it converts all he takes into its own nourishment.

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

Joseph Addison
A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.

Joseph Addison
Our disputants put me in mind of the skuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till he becomes invisible.

Joseph Addison
The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.

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

Joseph Addison
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty, insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders.

Joseph Addison
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

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
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

Joseph Addison
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.

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
I consider an human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shews none of its inherent beauties till the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot and vein that runs through the body of it.

Joseph Addison
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
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
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
The wildness of those compositions which go by the name of essays.

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
I would fain ask one of these bigotted Infidels, supposing all the great Points of Atheism … were laid together and formed into a kind of Creed, according to the Opinions of the most celebrated Atheists; I say, supposing such a Creed as this were formed, and imposed upon any one People in the World, whether it would not require an infinitely greater Measure of Faith, than any Set of Articles which they so violently oppose.

Joseph Addison
A noble metaphor, when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory around it, and darts a luster through a whole sentence.

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

Joseph Addison
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