Joseph Addison - The Spectator

115 Sourced Quotes

View all Joseph Addison Quotes
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.

Joseph Addison
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing, as they shine:
'The hand that made us is divine.'

Joseph Addison
Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing is more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.

Joseph Addison
It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that which would fall to them by such a division. [as they realize their problems could be worse!]

Joseph Addison
Among all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors are more apt to miscarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

Joseph Addison
He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.

Joseph Addison
Pleasure seizes the whole man who addicts himself to it, and will not give him leisure for any good office in life which contradicts the gaiety of the present hour.

Joseph Addison
What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

Joseph Addison
If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Joseph Addison
So pernicious a thing is wit, when it is not tempered with virtue and humanity.

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
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
It is indeed very possible, that the Persons we laugh at may in the main of their Characters be much wiser Men than our selves; but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those Respects which stir up this Passion.

Joseph Addison
A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

Joseph Addison
Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

Joseph Addison
There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty.

Joseph Addison
The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts — or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it.

Joseph Addison
The man who will live above his present circumstances is in great danger of living in a little time much beneath them; or as the Italian proverb runs, "The man who lives by hope, will die by hunger."

Joseph Addison
Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

Joseph Addison
Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.

Joseph Addison
When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.

Joseph Addison
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

Joseph Addison
To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

Joseph Addison
Death only closes a Man's Reputation, and determines it as good or bad.

Joseph Addison
I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of the Winter

Joseph Addison
There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance.

Joseph Addison
As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.

Joseph Addison
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

Joseph Addison
Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Joseph Addison
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of. It heightens all the virtues which it accompanies; like the shades in paintings, it raises and rounds every figure, and makes the colors more beautiful, though not so glaring as they would be without it.

Joseph Addison